life was this

The huge brick crisis of 2018 decisively changed the role and image of the architect. Some people think that his role has gone from occupying the top of the art aristocracy, the center of the spotlight, to a place akin to a social outcast. Money stopped flowing with that astonishing capacity of before for large international projects – which still exist, but not so much – and the value of the profession began to grow – which was also not new – actions based on respect for the environment, sustainability, rehabilitation, functionality… Today, it is more difficult for a young person to get to the Faculty of Architecture chasing pure media prestige represented by personalities like Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Santiago Calatrava or Norman Foster. In the end, architecture, like real life, must appeal to the values ​​of proportionality, standards, because what it must strive for is the improvement of people’s existence. Authors such as Rafael Moneo, Manuel Gallego Jorreto and David Chipperfield, among others, were pioneers of this philosophy, opposed to spectacle. And this way of thinking in the field of creativity is reflected in the normality and modesty of his everyday approaches – and even in his gestures -. Here, Chipperfield, fleeing the noise and fury of the City of London, shows himself as Chippi from the bar do Porto, the one who is treated like another by his neighbors in Corrubedo, who does not want to be a tourist in Barbanza but part of a family enjoying the sea, with his wife Evelyn and their three children. “Navigare necesse est”. Ah, life was like this. Plutarch already said that.