Ciudad Abierta / Open City : tracing, mapping and plotting and its trajectory

Abstract

The Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso and its annex the Open City is a school of architecture that for 46 years has been developing a unique approach to architectural education founded in the relationship between architecture and poetry. This thesis project is not a research paper in the senso estricto nor is it meant to fully explain the school's unique pedagogy. Instead, It is an attempt to offer an alternative response to two basic questions: How does one measure inspiration?, and How can we quantify poetics? Faced with the reality of this place and the deep and involved philosophical underpinnings that ground the school, I searched for a way to describe the meaning and value that this school holds. Words were not enough and photographs and video were not enough either. So as words and photos failed me to capture the poetic meaning that this place holds, I began to draw and cut and glue desperately before it all slipped away. In the process, I constructed a collage; a 'tapestry' that attempts to hold the intangible of this tangible place and group of people. The 'tapestry' I constructed is 'weaved' with three stories: first- my personal journey through this place, second- some factual moments of the history of the school and third- my constructed metaphor that bridges my personal experience with that of this tangible metaphor (the Open City School of Architecture). I believe this school holds through its teaching methodology and architectural production things that are not of the countenance but of the essence of architecture. I hope that as each of you unfold the fragments of these parallel histories contained in my 'tapestry' of images and words, you will discover through its loose fragments some of the poetic essence that this place holds.