English versions of the following articles are available online

Title: Surface as a Resistance Portrait
Author: Pablo Casals Aguirre. Architect, UNAB (2006). He currently focuses his professional practice around photography, audiovisual production and academia. Within his photographic and audiovisual work, Blanca montaña / contemporary Chilean architecture stands out, in which he produced audiovisual pieces about renowned Chilean architects. He has exhibited his work at the Venezia Biennale, the Milano Trienale, the MoMa NY, and at the Aedes Gallery in Berlin, among other such events. He has received the Prize for Best Landscaping Short Film at the 5th Budapest Architecture Film Days, at the 5th Winnipeg Architecture and Design Film Festival, Canada, and at the Paris Photo Fair. He currently teaches at the Architecture School of the Universidad de Talca and at the Universidad Mayor. José Luis Uribe Ortiz. Architect, Universidad de Talca. Master in Theory and Practice of the Architecture Project, ETSAB UPC (Spain). He is the author of Talca, cuestión de educación (Editorial Arquine, 2013), which received the IX Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism prize to the best architecture publication (Argentina, 2014), and the DAM Architectural Book Awards (Germany, 2014). He co-curated A contracorriente, Chile’s pavilion at the XV Venezia Biennale 2016. He is currently a professor at the School of Architecture of the Universidad de Talca.
Abstract: After the social unrest of October 2019 in Chile, architecture became one of its material evidences. In an effort to resist possible violent attacks, the facades of the buildings were covered, in the same way in which protesters covered their faces to resist the chemicals used in an effort to disperse them. Thus, architecture began to manifest a resistance, but one less epic and muffled than the one that woke up a country.
Keywords: resistance; protests; armor; facades; photography
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Title:Fernando Castillo Velasco: An Architecture of Resistance
Author: Fernando Castillo Velasco. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (1947). His work, among which it is worth noting his community housing projects and his participation in the BVCH office, was recognized in 1983 with the National Architecture Prize. He worked as a professor at the UC School of Architecture, the University of Cambridge, the Universidad Central de Venezuela and, finally, at the Universidad ARCIS, of which he was also a co-founder. Along with this, he was appointed rector of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (1967-1973) and served as intendant of the Santiago Metropolitan region (March 1994 – September 1994) and as mayor of the district of La Reina (1965-1968; 1992-1994; 1996-2004). He passed away on July 18, 2013.
Abstract: From politics, profession or academia, the Chilean architect Fernando Castillo Velasco (FCV) resisted conventions and defied any possible classification. But beyond the obvious, it is possible to argue that the very idea of autonomous enclaves that protect themselves from the environment, resisting through solidarity – which FCV explored in various formats -is in itself an architecture of resistance.
Keywords: resistance; construction; community; politics; interview
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Title:The interior life
Author: Alejandro Crispiani. Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina (1984). Doctor of Human and Social Sciences, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, 2009. He has researched in history and criticism of contemporary design and architecture. He is the author of the books Objetos para transformar el mundo. Trayectorias del Arte Concreto Invención (Santiago and Buenos Aires, 2011) and Palabras cruzadas. Ensayos sobre arte, arquitectura y diseño (Buenos Aires, 2017). He is tenured professor of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urban Studies of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Abstract: From politics, profession or academia, the Chilean architect Fernando Castillo Velasco (FCV) resisted conventions and defied any possible classification. But beyond the obvious, it is possible to argue that the very idea of autonomous enclaves that protect themselves from the environment, resisting through solidarity – which FcV explored in various formats -is in itself an architecture of resistance.
Keywords: -resistance; construction; community; polítics
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Title:Spatial Histories of Dissidence: Imagination, Memory, and Resistance in Istanbul, Vienna, and Santiago de Chile, 1938-1945
Author: Sophie Hochhäusl Architect, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. PhD in History in Architecture and Urbanism, Cornell University. She is currently working on two book projects: Memories of the Resistance: Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and the Architecture of Collective Dissidence, 1918-1989, and Housing Cooperative: Politics, Architecture, and Urban Imagination in Vienna, 1904-1934. She is the recipient of a Carter Manny Award by the Graham Foundation (2015), the Bruno Zevi Award (2017), the Perkins Holmes Undergraduate Teaching Award (2020), and the inaugural Lynda S. Hart Teaching Award for a faculty granted by the Alice Paul Center and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Sophie Hochhäusl is an Assistant Professor at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and a member of the Executive Board for the program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies in the University of Pennsylvania.
Abstract: This research introduces us to a story of friendship and kinship between the Austrian Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and the Chilean Victoria Maier Mayer, two architects who took part in the resistance against the nazi regime. The observation of their lives open up new ways of writing spatial histories of dissidence.
Keywords: resistance; memory; dissidence; anti-fascism; essay
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Title:The Architect as an Observant a Remembrance
Author: Daniel Concha. Architect, Universidad de Concepción, Chile (2010). MA History & Critical Thinking, Architectural Association, United Kingdom (2012). He has designed, taught and written about the public role that private initiatives can have on the city. He currently works at COMUN as project supervisor
Abstract: What role should the architect take in the face of an insurrection movement? Can practice be transformed after a political event? Reviewing the reactions of two renowned architects – Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi – to the French May, this article places us in front of an existential question: where is the architect located in moments of political upheaval, in the vanguard as an activist or in the rear as a journalist?
Keywords: resistance; protests; history; urbanism; essay
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Title:Kiruna Forever
Author: Carlos Mínguez Carrasco. Architect, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona (2004). Master of Science in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture, GsaPP, Columbia University (2012). Chief Curator, ArkDes (Swedish National Center for Architecture and Design). He was associate curator at Storefront for Art and Architecture (2012-2018) and curator, along with the After Belonging Agency, of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennial. His publications include After Belonging: The Objects, Spaces, and Territories of the Ways We Stay in Transit (Lars Müller Publishers, 2016), OfficeUS Manual (Lars Müller Publishers, 2017), Bodybuilding (Performa, 2019) and Kiruna Forever (ArkDes, 2020).
Abstract: Iron, a key mineral for the industrial revolution, refuses to be replaced. Its extraction continues active, to the point of forcing the city of Kiruna – in Sweden – to be moved in order to allow the expansion of a mine. This case turns into a prism that allows us to observe how, at a time when climate change is a reality, the productive and extractive dynamics inherited from the 20th century resist to disappear.
Keywords: resistance; city; urban planning; community; exhibition
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Title:Resilience is More than Resistance: Two Experiences from the 2010 Earthquake and Tsunami
Author: Elizabeth Wagemann. Architect and Master in Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (2005). MPhil (2012) and PhD in Architecture (2017), University of Cambridge, UK. She is a co-author of Disaster risk reduction including climate change adaptation for housing and settlements (Routledge, 2017). She has been a researcher at the University of Cambridge, CEDEUS and CIGIDEN. She is currently an assistant professor at Universidad Mayor, Chile.Renato D’Alençon. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Master in Architecture, Cornell University, and doctor, Technische Universität Berlin. He is the author of the books Acondicionamientos (Ediciones ARQ, 2008) and Eingewanderte Baumeister / Constructores Inmigrantes (DOM Publishers / Ediciones UC, 2014). He is currently a researcher, academic deputy director and assistant professor in the Master in Sustainable Architecture and Energy at the Uc School of Architecture, Chile. Margarita Greene. Architect (1973) and Master in Sociology (1988), Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. PhD, University College London (2002). She has led numerous research and consulting projects nationally and internationally and is the author of a large number of academic publications. She is currently a tenured professor at the UC School of Architecture and a principal researcher at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS)
Abstract: In the face of a natural catastrophe, resistance is a necessary but not sufficient condition. A building can withstand an earthquake or a flood, but that does not mean that the life it held will go back to be developed in a normal way. Hence, based on the experience after the 2010 earthquake, this text advocates resilience as a key concept, a scope of which goes far beyond mere material resistance.
Keywords: resistance; planning; resilience; catastrophes; research
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Title:Wohnregal Building, Berlin, Germany
Author: Marc Frohn. Master of Architecture, University of Houston, USA (2001). Master of Architecture, Rice University, USA (2004). He has collaborated with OMA/Rem Koolhaas and with b&k + brandlhuber&co. He co-founded FAR frohn&rojas in 2004. He has won the AR Award for Emerging Architecture (2007), the DETAIL Prize ArchitectureXport (2009), the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers (2010) and the RIBA National Award (2016). He has been a professor at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, at SCI-Arc, Usa, and at the Royal College of Art in London. Since 2015 he is a tenured professor at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.Mario Rojas. Diplom-Ingenieur (Dipl.-Ing.) Architektur, RWTH Aachen University, Germany (2002). He has collaborated with gmp Architekten, Oscar Niemeyer and bgp de Bernardo Gómez Pimienta. He co-founded FAR frohn&rojas in 2004. He has won the AR Award for emerging architecture (2007), the DETAIL prize ArchitectureXport (2009), and the Architectural League Prize for Young Architects and Designers (2010). He is a professor at the Universidad Andrés Bello since 2007, and, since 2017, at the Universidad de las Américas (UDLA), Chile.
Abstract: It is not very common for residential buildings to express the layout of their structural resistance so clearly. But when it comes to precast concrete systems – such as the one used by this building – the necessary dilatations between the different elements requires the load exchange to be evident. Thus, the visibility of the structural system becomes the protagonist of absolutely neutral and flexible interiors
Keywords: resistance; housing; work; adaptability; Project
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Title:Office-Party
Author: Brittany Utting and Daniel Jacobs are architects, educators, and co-founders of the collaborative HOME-OFFICE. Their work interrogates the relationship between space, labor, and ecology. Brittany Utting is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at Rice University and Daniel Jacobs is a lecturer at the University of Michigan.
Abstract: When workspaces have already appropriated the aesthetics of leisure as a way to increase productivity, the question becomes inescapable: is there any possibility of resistance? This project bets for a deviation from the rules of workspace architecture, resisting by means of an alteration of the codes, that is, as if it were an ‘architectural hack.’
Keywords: resistance; office; work; management; project
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Title:Black Mountain College: An Irresistible Agenda
Author: Ana Gilsanz Díaz. Architect, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain (2004). Master in Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism (2011), and Doctor in Architecture (2017), from the Universidad de Alicante (2011). Member of the research group “Metropolis, Architecture and Heritage” of the same university. She is co-author of the Guía para la introducción de la perspectiva de género en la docencia de la Arquitectura (Castellón de la Plana, 2020). Associate Professor of Architectural Composition at the Universidad de Alicante, Spain. María Elia Gutiérrez Mozo. Architect, University of Navarra, Spain (1992). Doctor in Architecture, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (1999). She is a member of the University Research Institute for Gender Studies and was coordinator of the Iberic American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (2006-2012), and of University Development Cooperation Projects in Lima (2015-2017). She is the director of the Secretariat of Campus Development of the Vice-Rector’s Office for Campus and Technology, and professor of Architectural Composition at the University of Alicante, Spain. José Parra Martínez. Architect (2000) and Doctor in Architecture, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia (2012). He has been a member of the Records Committee DocoMoMo Ibérico (2007-2011) and co-author of its publications on housing and modern infrastructure (Fundación Arquia, 2009-2011). His recent publications include his co-authorship of the book The Housing Project. Discourses, Ideals, Models and Politics in 20th-Century Exhibitions (Leuven University Press, 2020). Hired doctor professor of Architectural Composition at the Universidad de Alicante, Spain.
Abstract: Sometimes it is not necessary to know where you are going, and just know where you don’t want to go. This possibility of not having a clear objective – more than that of resisting conventions or well-known paths – has been little explored in architecture history. This text shows us one of those strange cases, the Black Mountain College, an architecture school that, after too much resistance, ended almost in oblivion, without much descent.
Keywords: resistance; education; community; autonomy; essay
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Title:Casa 1 and LGBTQ+ Resistance in São Paulo, Brasil
Author: Artur de Souza Duarte. Architect, Master’s student in Architecture and Urbanism, School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Universidade de São Paulo (FaU-UsP), Brazil, 2020. Scholarship holder for CNPq – Brazil (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development). His research focuses on housing aimed at sexual and gender minorities. Artur is volunteer at NGo Casa 1 and FICA fund, and works as a researcher in Laboratório Para Outros Urbanismos, FAU-USP, São Paulo, Brazil. Renato Cymbalista. Architect, Urban Planner (1996) and Doctor in Architecture at FAU-USP (2006). His interests include sites of memory, alternative models of property rights and the right to the city. He edited the book What does an Ethical Landlord Look Like? (Chicago Architecture Biennial, 2019) and The Guide to the Difficult Places of São Paulo (Anna Blume, 2019). He is an Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Urbanism of the Universidade de São Paulo, a Professor in the Master’s Program in Intelligent and Sustainable Cities at UNINOVE, the President of the São Paulo-based Instituto Pólis, a board member of Casa do Povo (since 2014) and associate of Goethe Institute São Paulo.
Abstract: Resisting the discrimination, poverty or vulnerability associated with sexual identities is a daily practice for many people in the LGBtQ+ community. Casa 1 in São Paulo is an architecture that promotes these practices not only by providing a space for care and containment, but also by enabling the appearance of these identities in the public space, all thanks to community-scale performance strategies.
Keywords: resistance; inclusión; infrastructure; social services; research
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Title:Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
Author: Adjaye Associates
Abstract: If the history of the African American community has been one of resistance (to slavery, discrimination or to racist violence), a museum about their history could not but to symbolize that condition. Located in front of the monument to George Washington (slaver who abolished slavery), the building’s color, shape and materials showcase a conscious resistance confronting the neoclassical white of the buildings in the capital of the United States.
Keywords: resistance; museum; landscape; race; project
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Title:Should Monuments Resist? Sinking Monuments: Notes on our Current Statuophobia
Author: Valentina Rozas-Krause Architect and Master in Urban Planning, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. PhD in Architecture, University of California, Berkeley. She is currently working on her next book Memorials and the Cult of Apology as a postdoctoral Collegiate Fellow at the University of Michigan.
Abstract: The social outbreak of October 2019 defined a new role for monuments in Chile. During the demonstrations, not only the statues that paid tribute to Spanish conquistadors – namely, those who built a country to the detriment of the native peoples – were torn down, but the historical (therefore constructed) backing of certain buildings’ patrimonial status was also questioned. Even the Baquedano monument, located in the middle of a roundabout of the same name, at the focal center of the demonstrations in Santiago, was completely covered with new meanings during the protests. In late May 2020, the death of African American citizen George Floyd – at the hands of the Minneapolis police, in the Us – reactivated the Black Lives Matter movement, which resists and opposes racism against African American people. In the context of this movement, a series of statues that paid tribute to slave-traders and owners were attacked, generating a surprising parallel (just months away), between what happened in Chile and in other parts of the world. Considering both events, in the debate on this issue of ARQ we asked: should monuments resist in place? Or is it preferable to protect them by removing them from the public space? What happens if their meaning changes? Are they still considered monuments? What is it that resists in them? After all, if monuments materialize the intersection between history, architecture, and the city, what can resist the most, their meaning or their material?
Keywords: resistance; monuments; history; protests; debate
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Title:Should Monuments Resist? Public monuments: Protagonists of a possible future
Author: Erwin Brevis Vergara Architect, Universidad de Concepción. Co-founder of the Heritage Unit of the Municipality of Chillán (UPA), an entity that was distinguished in 2014 with the Conservation of National Monuments Award. Distinguished as one of the 100 young leaders of 2016 by Sábado magazine of El Mercurio, also recognized in 2018 by the DOCOMOMO International Foundation. In 2019 he took over as technical secretary of the Council of National Monuments.
Abstract: The social outbreak of October 2019 defined a new role for monuments in Chile. During the demonstrations, not only the statues that paid tribute to Spanish conquistadors – namely, those who built a country to the detriment of the native peoples – were torn down, but the historical (therefore constructed) backing of certain buildings’ patrimonial status was also questioned. Even the Baquedano monument, located in the middle of a roundabout of the same name, at the focal center of the demonstrations in Santiago, was completely covered with new meanings during the protests. In late May 2020, the death of African American citizen George Floyd – at the hands of the Minneapolis police, in the Us – reactivated the Black Lives Matter movement, which resists and opposes racism against African American people. In the context of this movement, a series of statues that paid tribute to slave-traders and owners were attacked, generating a surprising parallel (just months away), between what happened in Chile and in other parts of the world. Considering both events, in the debate on this issue of ARQ we asked: should monuments resist in place? Or is it preferable to protect them by removing them from the public space? What happens if their meaning changes? Are they still considered monuments? What is it that resists in them? After all, if monuments materialize the intersection between history, architecture, and the city, what can resist the most, their meaning or their material?
Keywords: resistance; monuments; history; protests; debate
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Editorial. The Power to Resist

After devoting a large part of his life to studying the inner workings of power – arriving at the conclusion that it was practically everywhere – in the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault (1978:95) wrote that “wherever there is power, there is resistance.” This not only implies that power contains the germ of its own response, but also that resistance is not external to power, rather, it is its counterpart.

In physical terms, resistance is the opposition to the exercise of a force. As an action (or, more precisely, a reaction), resistance has no sign other than being the negative of the force it opposes. Thus, the resistance of a chair to our weight allows us to rest our bodies, or the resistance of the air gives support to the airplane’s wings, so it stays in flight. Without it, in both cases we would end up on the ground. Something similar occurs with electrical resistance. The filament in a light bulb, for example, consumes energy by resisting the passage of electrons and, in doing so, transforms that energy into heat that turns the filament incandescent. That incandescence illuminates us. The light from the vial is the visible product of resistance.

Through dynamics similar to these analogies, the concept approaches politics. Because resistance is not the mere opposition to the power of the day. It is more than that. The mere fact that Foucault has pointed out that “wherever there is power, there is resistance,” reflects that it is not always evident. Thus, part of the meaning of this issue of arq is precisely to give visibility to the different forms of resistance that appear in architecture.

In the photographic report, Pablo Casals and José Luis Uribe record the traces of the resistance of buildings to the social explosion. Through the example of Fernando Castillo Velasco, both in the different facets of his career and in his communities, we try to show the possibilities of an architecture of resistance, which is then put into perspective by Alejandro Crispiani, who cites John Ruskin – another symbol of resistance in architecture. Sophie Hochhäusl allows us to discover the wonderful story of friendship between two architects who participated in political resistance during the 20th century. Daniel Concha reminds us of the stories of resistance of two renowned contemporary architects. Through the case of Kiruna, in Sweden, Carlos Mínguez presents the conflict of a city that must be displaced because an extractive activity refuses to disappear. Wagemann, D’Alençon and Greene explain the conceptual differences between resistance and resilience. In Berlin, frohn&rojas (FAR) develop a building that clearly expresses its patterns of structural resistance. Daniel Jacobs and Brittany Utting propose a strategy in which the alteration of the codes allows to resist the homogeneity of the workspaces. Gilsanz, Gutiérrez and Parra narrate the experience of an architecture school that resisted academic trends. De Souza and Cymbalista reveal the case of an LGBTQ+ resistance space in the center of São Paulo. At the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Adjaye Associates shows how a building can symbolize resistance through architectural operations. Finally, on this issue’s debate, Valentina Rozas-Krause and Erwin Brevis raise two points of view regarding the permanence of monuments.

This last example brings us back to the current condition. Those who read this issue in a few years will be able to remember this moment not only because of the social outbreak in Chile or the protests against racism in different parts of the world, but also because this 2020, humanity has had to resist the onslaught of the coViD-19 pandemic by locking themselves up in their houses to avoid the danger of contagion. In recent months, architecture has become our main tool for sanitary resistance.

With the ARQ team teleworking since mid-March, this is the first time we’ve published a magazine without seeing each other in person. Hidden behind architecture, after months of looking at the world through a screen – be it from a computer, telephone or television – many are betting on the replacement of physical supports and even the permanence of telework after the pandemic. At ARQ, we resist those options. Not only do we miss going back to our offices, sharing coffee early in the morning, and talking about architecture, but we also believe that while the pandemic may hit institutions, it does not have to make them disappear. In this sense, insisting on publishing this number 105 on paper – especially in a format with less color than usual – is a way to resist the onslaught and, as such, demonstrate the power of the magazine. The effort is worth it as long as that thin filament that enlightens us is not cut.

Notes
FOUCAULT , Michel. The History of Sexuality. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978.