Mabel Zertuche Garza
Like every end of the semester, detailing models and reviewing arguments, the day of the final presentation of the projects of the CEMEX-ITESM White Chair arrives. This exhibition is open to the general public and is attended by teachers, parents, students, academics, graduates of the Tecnológico del Monterrey and, on occasions, even politicians and businessmen. On a night like that, there iscertain energythat has been accumulating during the semester and that culminates in a presentation where not only a project is exposed, but also ideas, arguments, theories and motives are raised.
What I remember most from the presentation of the Cátedra Blanca 14 is seeing a young EXATEC architect in the audience cry. It could have been due to the social vocation of the project, around the rehabilitation of abandoned structures in Cerro de la Campana, one of the most marginalized areas of Monterrey, or perhaps because of theemotional speech by Agustín Landa Vértizabout the social value of architecture, the importance of dedication and architecture as a profession.
The White Chair is synonymous with thisemotion towards the profession, towards the built world, towards architectural work. And the emotion of his teachers is genuine, contagious and is perceived both in his way of talking about architecture and in his personal way of practicing it. When going through new buildings, I realize that more teachers are needed who repeat precepts like "lThe structure is what governs and establishes order, and this order grants dignity”. There is a lack of teachers who say thatthere is no black thread, so the only way to arrive at solutions is by working with “paper mattresses and elbow oil”. Phrases like this we heard from Agustín, as he had heard them years ago from his father, Agustín Landa Verdugo, and they are still present now with his son, Agustín Landa Ruiloba. We chanted them like mantras and, semester after semester, they are rewritten on the blackboards in the classroom. Being part of the Cátedra Blanca is not only an academic opportunity, it is being part of a brotherhood, deeply rooting these precepts that take you to the heart of the project.
I think there is a particularity that makes the Cátedra Blanca so special: a great congruence between what has been studied and what has been designed. The case studies not only serve as general knowledge, but also as references applicable to specific situations or problems. The works of Louis Kahn, James Stirling, Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe here are not static and untouchable. In them you seehow their design methods can come to inform usin the present, how the typologies have evolved to respond to different programs. And I think that in this book it is seen quite clearly. The projects presented are resolved with spaces organized into servants and servers, with circulation modules separated from the main volumes, with sets of primary volumes inscribed to others and with ordering structures.
The White Chair has achievedroot these architectural valuesin us, its graduates, in addition to promoting the defense of the projects with arguments supported at times with stubbornness. The materialization of new spaces includes complex processes; Lots of things can go wrong, but allowing yourself to be discouraged or cynical about leaving them like that doesn't help. That is why the rigor of the Cátedra Blanca encourages learning to defend ideas and work as a team, always collaborating, speaking and discussing with a common language and critical sense.
In the White Chair, much is said about order and legibility, but also about light andsearch for silence. Luis Barragán described it as serenity, intimacy and wonder; Louis Kahn as himbalance between silence and light, Alberto Campo Baeza as the suspension of time. I believe that the development of this capacity of architecture to fascinate and provoke this silence should be the end of all architecture, regardless of style or materials. In this sense, the White Chair has been a guide and north, since it has allowed us to approach this desire that architecture has to remain in the memory of people over the years.
ORDER UNIT SYSTEM 15 years of the White Chair
