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Mauricio Pezo & Sofía von Ellrichshausen

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Mauricio Pezo & Sofía von Ellrichshausen Interview

By Felipe De Ferrari M. & Diego Grass P.

Concepción / Chile

I. MEDIA / SELF-PROMOTION

OA There’s no doubt that you’ve been very careful when in comes to present your works: some of them are removed from your official
portfolio once they’ve suffered inconvenient interventions –i.e. the house next to Poli- while the rest finds its way to the right showcase
–editorials, exhibitions and even lectures-.

Considering all of these facts, we do believe is pertinent to discuss your position regarding the architectural scene. I mean, it’s easy to be
cynic about it –like Aravena stating that he doesn’t go cocktail parties and that his thing has nothing to do with the contacts he’s made on
the way-. Maybe you can be honest and pragmatic. But things get kind of suspicious once you end up investing a lot of time in trying to
appear in any of these tribunes. The risk of turning yourself into a spectacle is that you might end up buying a ticket to your own show. It
shows. Just ask Sou Fujimoto, who’s now the face of this kind of absurd form of self-promotion.

You’ve already won your place in this tribune, and –from the inside- you can share with us some of the flaws of this system. Why try to keep
your place in this tribune? Why publish anything you do if you’re already up there? Or let’s put it this way: Why participate in suspicious
events like WAF or sharing your material with indulgent projects like Archdaily?

We’re asking because we’ve seen how your work has been unnecessarily overexposed in all these weak media channels –which are up to
anything fashionable-. Are you actually interested in receiving the feedback you get from these sources or is it just a way to keep things in
motion while you’re working on something more ambitious?

Mauricio Pezo Fist thing we’d like to clear up is the motive behind our work: our main objective is to develop a practice -to practice what we preach-.
But in order to do so, first we have to frame our work in a very specific context, which led us to wander about our main features. Well, we’d have to say
that we’re a small studio, we’re a couple having a certain cultural frame which is very specific to us, like –for example- that I come from the countryside
and Sofia was also raised in a rural, touristic place, related to a very particular landscape. Once you get that personal status, there’s the fact that we’re
based in Concepcion, a small city, away from media and networking. Therefore we can’t face these things like someone who’s in London or New York.
But it is indeed something you have to consider, because you are here. And we want to use media as a possibility, because it’s in hand and there’s no
use in denying this. There you have it and it can help you as a platform in order to make certain connections or exchanges. But actually we don’t
conceive our work from the media, because our practice has its own internal logic. It wouldn’t make sense to have media as our first priority because of
its immediacy, which is quite different from architecture’s pace, the pace of its development. Media deals with this kind of buzz which is just like vitamin
C –it might make you feel healthy but it’s actually an artifice: you won’t live longer if you take loads of vitamin C pills-. And on the other hand, we can’t
use media as a guideline because it’s like a frayed coat of endless buzz –they’re always after all things new-. That’s why our practice operates
according to its own rules.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen The other day we were talking about Hanna Arend’s book “The Human Condition”. And even if it might bee a bit too romantic,
it actually gives you a very clear insight on the concept of the master. Mastery is manifested in two stages: when produced and then when it’s
exchanged. We’re really into this definition, because we’re well aware that almost all of our efforts are focused on producing a work –isolated, and
that’s why we live here- but we’re also aware of this place of exchange, where we can display our production. But first stage is much more important,
because or main objective is to produce works.

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Mauricio Pezo You need to follow a set of rules in order to define a certain practice. And once you realize that, then you’ll have to understand how it
works, because it’s like a repetitive exercise. That’s first. Second, these rules aren’t defined according to external factors, and the best possible
scenario is to play by the rules you invented for yourself. And third thing is that you have to stay real and follow this set of self-imposed rules. And thing
is that we do all this because we believe that practicing and exercising these rules is indeed a way to see the world, to understand all things from a very
specific point of view. That’s why we have developed a very specific method, a kind of grammar code which aims to express these rules with absolute
clarity, to be coherent with the things we imposed on ourselves.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen And this all has to do with us being isolated here, trying not to be neither hyperconscious nor naive about things coming
through media. But there’s always some sort of feedback once we do place our work in this showcase of interexchange -and it isn’t always
self-promotion-. Something we always say is that there’s so much noise out there that you can’t actually predict what kind of echoes you’d end up
receiving. That’s why we haven’t articulated a conscious strategy or something like that, about what we expect to get from all this media attention. Well,
obviously is not the same to be featured in A+U and Vivienda y Decoración [weekly design magazine included in a local newspaper] –they have totally
different targets-. But we aren’t that cocky to say something like “we don’t want to be featured in that edition because they’re not worthy of us”. We’d
actually want our students to have free access to that kind of information, and there’re a few tribunes which can actually do that. That’s why we’re open
to all these things –it’s both deliberate and beneficial-.

An event like World Architecture Festival is very honest when it comes to declare its real goals: somebody somewhere noticed the impact of today’s
media, and that’s a clear example of how fictional this whole media bubble really is. You can see how small offices like ours –which can’t afford to pay
the entry fee to this kind of events-, are invited as a jury to validate the actual entries, thus leading us to the tribune that we want to have, because
we’re all about quality.

OA But we all agree media –printed and digital- has the duty to perform as jury, the responsibility to do the right thing. So then, which has
been the experience of exposing your work to the indulgent attitude of some media units?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Well, our work has been disrespected. That’s true. But’ we don’t care about that. We’re well aware that the kind of intimacy
old masters had is now long gone, that kind of basic right of solitude.

Mauricio Pezo And that’s quite an issue, because architects don’t really work under the same conditions as a cabinet makes or painters: you’re
constantly exchanging your ideas with others. There’s the author in direct contact with his work, but there’s also constant communication, forced to
open up his intimate realm. It’s quite delicate, because it threatens our autonomy. But the thing that I do find positive about the relationship between
media and architecture has to do with the educative power of our discipline. All we can do from here is to have media to help us to raise awareness in
the public realm –which is quite like starting from scratch-. So you have architecture operating in different formats –the work, its representations and
subsequent communication- as a kind of educative device. If we do publish one of our buildings in the local press then we’d be reaching and educating a
lot of people. That’s why I was talking about the need to locate our own condition: If you do one work and then you do other one which is related to the
later one, then that’s an educational exercise which is proving that there’s a different way to do things to a lot of people.

OA That discourse works very well in underdeveloped places like Chile. Then why doing the same at more privileged contexts like Europe?

Mauricio Pezo Indeed. It’s more sophisticated. Back there you have to work with a different set of references, which is quite different from Chile –here
it’s more basic, it’s like “this is modern” or “this is minimalist”-. In simpler contexts, there is a certain set of codes which you can use as basic
connections with that reality. But things are different in, let’s say, Europe –they have a different set of values-. When we state that we’re interested in
things like integrity, unity, clear structural principles, etc., there’s indeed a group which is open to receive our message. For example, the house we’re
doing in Spain has a very sophisticated client, with a rich cultural background, and you don’t have to adjust your language when you’re talking with him.
He can understand some of the nuances we’re into, like the conceptual issue of accessing from behind the water, or when we avoid direct views to the
landscape –all these different things-..

Sofia Von Ellrichshausen We only share a part of our production with media once we have completed something. Once it’s built. And –back to
Arendt’s argument- when you publish something it means that you’re willing to accept the updated quality of all things public. We’re interested in this
added value. But one trend that we actually don’t like is that belief that everything can be exchanged, that everything has this kind of value. And that’s
why many architects fall on this trap of sharing everything, which it’s quite unnecessary.

OA It reminds us about the interview we held with Angelo Bucci. He said that Fernando Diez once told him that his works were half cave, half
nave. That comment was a total surprise to Bucci. We would want to know if you’ve had this same kind of experience in one of the many
exchange events you’ve attended –symposiums, lectures-, when you meet many other architects. Have you received second lectures on
your work? Have you been portrayed in ways you wouldn’t even imagine? Can you give us some examples?

Mauricio Pezo Sure. For instance, when we met Juhani Pallasmaa: he came to Chile, had the chance to visit Poli, but the rest of the conversations we
had with him actually happened in other context –like Finland or England-. He has always reviewed our work from a very sublime or metaphysical point
of view, which is actually quite valid coming from a sophisticated person like him. That’s how he has thought us to review our own work, and all those
second readings help you to see your production from distance, away from its contingency –detailing, budget, construction flaws or else-. Most part of
our work deals with finding a way to control all these issues. So when you meet somebody who actually perceives the virtue of our original ideas, then
you realize you’re doing the right thing.

But there’s more to it. For example, we meet Iñaki Abalos in some event in London, we had a little argument with him about the importance of
referencing your projects instead of describing its qualities. And from that very discussion we came to realize that we’ve always been about conceiving
the broader possible meaning of any kind of architectural quality, like –for instance- using human qualities. It’s just like Ricardo Astaburuaga’s concept
of physiognomics –character, temper, interiority and exteriority; kindness, severity, formality or strictness: they’re all human qualities which you can

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also apply to architecture-. We’re deeply interested into conceive architecture this way.

For example, when they tend to compare Wolf and Fosc –because they do have similar strategies-, like –for instance- Wolf as a much more feminine
block and Fosc like a masculine one –because of its ambiguity in terms of material qualities-: These are all important considerations but they didn’t pop
out during the design process –they’re just perceptions-.

OA Before we continue with the next topic, we’d like to recall the fight over your work that happened back in Finland –on 2009’s Alvar Aalto
Symposium-, which was then labeled as aspirational and way too sophisticated for a context like ours –which I guess they didn’t know that
well-. How did you receive that kind of criticism?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen It’s quite clear that the symposium took a weird shift unto social issues, poverty and stuff like that. There were lots of
lectures whining about these issues. But we weren’t there to have their mercy. Not at all.

Mauricio Pezo It’s a stereotype. Because the First Workd –that sophisticated elite with all their traditions and references- expect to se us developing
countries showing what they already know about our context –like primitive expressions of culture, people living under a tree who now move to a little
hut and all the ups and downs of having a basic roof-. That’s why they dig Elemental, Solano [Benitez] from Paraguay or Francis Kéré in Africa, only
because it’s politically correct. They want to see an architect improving society through democratic mechanisms, urban development, new technologies
and our case is quite different from that –they can’t measure our success-. We don’t have anything concrete to offer, because our work is about
interpreting our own context, it’s more intellectual. And that’s exactly the thing that only a figure like Juhani Pallasmaa can see in us.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen It isn’t about rich or poor. We’re with the middle class, a kind of cultural growth –using Pezo’s own words- which comes after
you’ve overcame emergency, when things aren’t that obvious. And that’s quite disorienting for Europeans.

Mauricio Pezo Latin America’s poverty, exoticism and flamboyant landscapes are all clichés. And that’s exactly what worldwide critics want to read
from us. You may partially explain Poli’s success because of its extraordinary sobriety, placed on a extraordinary landscape and made with
extraordinary craftsmanship [by local fishermen or unqualified workforce]; it had to recycle its own construction materials, it had an ambiguous program
–all these are key features which are also, let’ say, politically correct according to international standards-. But that’s only half of the story: other side of
the story is about a conceptual approach which is far more sophisticated than anyone would imagine, and those are the aspects we’re all about. It’s
about a series of conceptual readings stimulated by its presence, which is multi-faceted: it affects its immediate context and it also echoes here in
Concepcion, throughout the country, internationally and even in the dialogues we’ve had with many artists, in a way beyond the understanding of media
and its unlimited lust for fresh meat.

II. ONE HIT WONDER

OA Just like in the music industry, you have all your life to prepare your first record. If it’s good, well, OK: the real challenge is to keep things
that good for the second and third try.

We remember a conversation we had with Rodrigo Pérez de Arce, when he stated that you were very intelligent in the way you publicized
Poli House –a work which is presented as both economic and elegant, plus making use of the natural grandiosity of the Chilean landscape-.
And while Poli isn’t a spontaneous hit -it took many trials and errors like Rivo- we strongly believe that there’s no doubt in its role as your
mayor and most visible breakthrough. It’s exactly the same situation as Cecila Puga’s House in Bahia Azul: a powerful work that ends up
shadowing any other attempt made by the same architect. Don’t get us wrong: we don’t really see this as a problem. Most of architects
don’t even get the chance to make one single oeuvre. We’d just like to know if you’re well aware of this situation.

Do you think Poli is still your best record to date? Was it because it had the perfect combination of a soft client –you plus a couple of
friends-, an outstanding site and a lot of time to think about it [away from media’s radar, with fewer commissions]?

What do you prefer: One great oeuvre or a series of built exercises?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen First, we’d have to say that each work has its own set of circumstances. Sometimes it’s easier to achieve quality just
because you were lucky with the initial input –like in Poli’s case: a spectacular location, a “soft” client, etc.-. Therefore it’s easier to have a spectacular
response to all of these spectacular conditions, right? But it doesn’t mean that the rest of our works don’t have the same kind of energy or lucidity. Only
difference is that they start from a different set of circumstances.

Mauricio Pezo And your response to the given conditions is just one part of the whole thing -other half is the conditions you have to face-. I’m saying
this because not all of the projects have the same conditions like, for instance, Pael: an aspirational middle-class client in a suburban context, with us
working over a small plot with a very conventional program for a traditional couple –all of which is absolutely different from doing a compact block with
an ambiguous program over a sublime landscape-. But we always consider our work as a continuous practice, and this way we want to develop the
adaptation of our own interests in everything we do, while –at the same time- responding and interpreting each one of the commissions we get –to
make the best out of the given conditions-. That’s why we don’t like this idea of labeling architectural works as hits, because that may lead us to
validate spectacle as a positive feature – that’s such a dangerous trend-. Architecture shouldn’t be made for the media, because media isn’t concerned
on the users of this or that particular architecture work: they just want to feed their spectators.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Expecting their approval.

Mauricio Pezo Indeed. They will applaud or have some opinion about it, which is quite fine if you see it as a political device. Guggenheim Bilbao was
made as a postcard for the city, as urban merch. So the building can’t actually avoid this double purpose as both physical experience and media

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spectacle. That’s cool, but not all buildings can do this. Architects shouldn’t aspire to make like a little Guggenheim, to stand out and be “special” in any
particular context: they should try to make something both integrated and coherent.

OA But Poli’s case is critical. We’re not talking about media impact, but of the quality of the oeuvre -maybe Poli is your only oeuvre-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen When you asked us about whether if we preferred one great oeuvre or a series of built exercises, well, I’d go for a series of
great oeuvres.

Mauricio Pezo That’s true. And the case of Cien, Solo or our new transparent house [he’s talking about Arco House] is even more detailed and complex
than Poli. But we can’t actually measure the popularity of each one of our works. We just can’t. Of course there’re certain fragments of certain works
that we know are better than other ones; we have some very consistent spatial structures, some very well built ones and so on. For example, Poli
–which actually works quite fine as a whole unit- has many programmatic impurities, which are impossible to translate unto a more conventional program
–a conventional client wouldn’t accept that-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen And if you see it from a conventional point of view then you’d find a lot of flaws and mistakes, but those are the very things
that make it work as a whole. We –as clients- assumed that risk. But in other circumstances, you just can’t afford to take those same risks.

Mauricio Pezo Yeah. You have to figure out how to make it work. For instance, in Gold Building the programmatic risks are much more restrained.
Things are much more limited. We do try to be as radical as possible, but the risk of the unknown is kind of vertical: You had 140 apartments and one of
the big challenges of that project was to be able to control that risk.

III. ACADEMY

OA You both teach in many institutions. How do see the overwhelming excess of architecture schools in Chile’s post-dictatorship years? Is it
a positive or a negative thing?

Which are the consequences of this process over the local architectural scene?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Considering how things have changed in the past 30 years, we believe it’s quite positive to have this kind of over-supply as
a public policy. It is always good news to have too many schools, because it surely contributes to the country’s development. But once you see it from
the inside, well, then you’d realize it isn’t all good.

Mauricio Pezo It’s collapsed, for sure. The one big mistake is that most of them –with a few exceptions- follow the same lousy model like a method to
achieve the model’s own truncated standards. I believe they’re following the wrong examples: a big share of the local academic system is actually trying
to raise up traditional or courtier architects, those professionals who live from commissions from rich people –those who work serving the king-. And, in
order to do so, they use a set of very limited resources, instead of first trying to train their student’s minds on how to face a broader field of practice;
they deliver a codified system based on a series of slangs –just like [Jesús] Bermejo used to say- to be able to say what the king wants to hear. Let’s
be honest: there’s an emblematic figure building these very slick pavilions, with right angles, very sophisticated stuff. And he was like a visionary figure
for a lot of people. So the rest of the schools try to copy that model, which is to repeat all these horizontal, sophisticated and modern horizontal boxes.
And that’s all about it: architects mastering the art of making sophisticated houses or else. It’s like an epigonal paradigm. I mean, they’re trying to
spread the model of the most successful architect in terms of media visibility, and also because it’s the easiest thing to do –it’s a new style competing
with Georgian or cololnial-style houses-. It’s very simple, like “that’s modern architecture, so that’s exactly what we’re going to teach”. They make
epigons out of the long gone originality of their supposedly only model, which is actually just one amongst many other alternatives.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen And nowadays you can see how the smartest epigons are even capable to detect the codes of impact that they receive
from media so to shift their work into something slightly different in order to reclaim some more visibility. And media just plays dumb, because they
usually detect this kind of scam. They only want to keep things flowing.

Mauricio Pezo It’s bad, because they’re playing a game which ended long ago, they’re going nowhere. But it isn’t’ all bad, because it can work as a
cheap counterpoint between these imitations of the original modern house and the usual market references –like georgian or neoclassic houses-, which
might end up summing up into a sort of average architectural quality for a developing country like ours.

OA But what’s the difference between this model and, for instance, the one used in Sao Paulo University School of Architecture? Isn’t it just
as automatic as the Chilean one?

Mauricio Pezo No. Because their Basic model is a challenge. It’s embedded with a kind of structural and spatial exoticism. And those who follow it will
have to face resistance, while our model [the Chilean] –the horizontal house, the pavilion on the landscape- was already well digested by the father of
that model, chewed by his collaborator and badly done by a gang of epigons who’re far away from the original. Big difference with Sao Paulo is that we
don’t take any risk: it’s actually a servile model with all the bedrooms in one side, services in the other and access in the common areas, while the
paulista model is actually a challenge, forcing you to rethink its original implementation.

We do respect the original. But as for the epigon, the chameleons –those who follow trends- and media’s cynics, playing fool and accepting these
copycats, well, it’s all about survival –an extreme form of darwinism-: main objective is to be successful. And if it means to copy a soft work with no
substance, to copy all things trendy, so be it.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen There’s a hyperconscious attitude towards media’s impact like, for example, in Talca University School of architecture –one
of the few ones which has succeeded in having a system which is different from courtiership-. It actually the exact opposite, with the idea of us
architects being promoters of our projects. Problem is that they are way too aware of media’s role as a tool. And the risk of that attitude is in trying to

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modify an supposedly original way of thinking in order to please media –that would be awfully wrong-.

Mauricio Pezo And just like the courtier architect is like a formula, the social-struggling architect –the one who deals with poverty and self-promotion-
might end up being just another one amongst many. And that’s why their diploma projects present a series of distortions, because of this media
hyperconsciousness, like presenting their tutors as project collaborators, or documenting every step they make into a blog –they’re manipulating the
facts so that everything seem like a coherent storyline-. They’re like retroactive autobiographies. But it doesn’t really matter: all that matters is the work
itself.

Everywhere we teach –like Cornell, Talca, Concepción or else- we try to follow two main guidelines. Fist one is that we can’t tell our students to do an
horizontal box or teach them a certain construction process, because it will narrow the horizon and potential of our discipline. And second point is the
total opposite of the first one: to recognize the limitations of being in the academy -time is short and limited-. That’s why we can’t provide them a
restricted language or code. Therefore, all that is left for us to teach is really simple: how to solve architectonic problems using land-art tools, drawing
techniques, building objects, etc, but always having an architectonic mindset. That’s the only way they can find their own way of thinking. So we test
them with a set of restrictions, like a game with traps –we provide the conditions and then we force them to endure some difficulties, which is actually a
very realistic exercise-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen We set the traps and we lend them some tools –our rules, which we have developed throughout all these years together-.

OA And what about the case of your time teaching at the U.S. [Cornell, 2009]? What kind of dialogue you had with those students? Did you
witness the typical caricature of the over-articulated discourse of the American academy?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen We might be lacking cultural background while they actually don’t. But their problem is that they don’t really have the chance
to build their stuff. We saw it at some of their schools, which is the only place where they can practice what they preach. Just a few of them will be
lucky enough to do a refurbishment of a bathroom. So then it’s obvious that they rely on the only thing that really depends on them, which is to articulate
their own discourse.

Mauricio Pezo They accept the conditions set by their context. And –by doing so- all they have left is to stretch to the limit the discursive or conceptual
aspects of their works –the design process in itself-. If there’s more references, more drawings, more renderings then it’s supposed to be more complex
and valuable.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen But the other problem is that the construction research labs are so deeply specialized on their own particular subjects that
there’s no room for conceptual speculation. As you can see, they’re in deep trouble.

IV. ART

OA You’ve never stopped to develop a series of parallel exercises which nurture your professional practice. Many times you’ve been asked
for the actual relationship between these two parallel realms –we’ve also done it-. But this time we’d lie to know if you do consider these
exercises to have the status of an art work. Do you mind about this label? Are you interested in being validated by another discipline?

Mauricio Pezo I’d say that the answer for both of your questions is yes: Every one of our buildings and exercises can be well considered as an artwork
in its own right.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Yes, there’s the initial intention –the author’s will- which determines which one is art and which is not.

Mauricio Pezo Beatriz Sarlo has a good way to describe it. She says art is art just by mere convention –she’s into Duchamp’s idea that artists have
the power to designate what is art and what is not, to the extent of presenting an object deprived from any sort of aesthetic value-. So we do believe
that all of the exercises we do in parallel of the more conventional architectural work deserve to be considered within the realm of Art. In fact, our new
corporate building [he’s talking about Cien House] has a workshop specifically designed for this kind of labor.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Well, we do recognize the difference between art and architecture. But you can’t really divide these two realms in our
practice –it’s a continuous process, they’re interlocked and superimposed in multiple ways-. However, the start points are different –the very moment
when you formulate the question-. I remember an episode of “Alice in Wonderland”, when the kings had to punish their gardeners because they made
some kind of mistake. So the king says “well, let’s hear the evidence and then we’ll deliberate our sentence”. But queen responded “no, no, no: first the
sentence and then we’ll hear the evidence”. Well, as you can see, we believe that these two moments –when you present the information and when you
make a statement- represent the difference between architectural practice and art works: buildings start with the evidence and then you jump to
conclusions, while art is the other way around –you have a sentence and then you gather the evidence to make your sentence more visible-.

Mauricio Pezo Yeah. It’s basically about defining a critical structure. And we do believe that both art and architecture have the right and duty to
establish a certain critical position –it might be contextual, conceptual, political or whatever-. But in architecture you can’t really predetermine those
critics because they’re related to the preexisting circumstances of that particular project. It works like a triangle diagram, with context, program and
construction in each angle. And once you articulate that dialogue –once you adjust all those factors- then you’ll be able to control its instability, which is
essential in order to establish critical readings -to critic reality through that work-. That crisis is much evident in art: the problem is how to present the
work, because most of the data you manage was actually self imposed by your own operations.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen We’ve also incorporated a fourth factor into this triangle: anti-fitness.

Mauricio Pezo Yes indeed: to disturb the whole scenario. Because we don’t want it to be a linear process –there has to be some sort of
maladjustment-. But let’s continue talking about all these parallel exercises –which operate according to the rules of other disciplines: it has helped us

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to realize that architecture is like the main line of the whole network of what we know as Fine Arts. We don’t mind to be romantic about it, to talk about
inspiration or things like that –artists don’t even do that anymore-: our thing is about the perception of architecture, about all those relative qualities that
you can’t really measure. It isn’t arbitrary at all, but it’s just that there’s a set of factors that work in a different realm of references.

OA And what about the artists’ feedback?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Well, the artists who had the chance to get to know our work have been the only ones who haven’t shown any interest in
this distinction between art and architecture. Unlike architects, they are very open to go straight into the most relevant and universal topics of our work.

Mauricio Pezo It’s very nice to talk to them about the performance of each one’s work. For example, we’ve always been very careful with the sensual
aspects of our works, even in small projects. And –unlike architects- it’s actually very difficult to find an artist who doesn’t care about this –about
materials, assembly, integrity, seriality, insistence and so on-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Other thing is that they go straight to content, to the essential problems. And that’s quite different from architecture, because
all of your energy is drained by the contingencies you need to face in order to make that project happen –like program, clients’ demands, etc-. It’s a
complex process.

Mauricio Pezo And artists are very strict when it comes to sustain an idea until the end, to make a consistent work witnessing the whole process
between formulation and execution. But that’s quite different from architecture: the idea is always diluted in the process of making. And our colleagues
are even happy with it -they can live with it-.

V. DIALOGUE

OA Your discourse it based on two main fields: one is very pragmatic –about each case’s requirements and conditions- while the other is
highly conceptual, using several artistic and literary references. It’s actually quite similar to Rodrigo Perez de Arce or Smiljan Radic’s texts,
like a multilayered cultural approach. And even thought we do believe it is very appropriate when it comes to add value to a finished project
–beyond mere descriptions- we do think it is actually dangerous considering the place where it’s coming from. How much is missed by your
local and global colleagues and students -locally and globally- if they don’t know such references? Because it’s quite different to repeat
Enrique Walker’s words on Perec from actually reading one of Perec’s books. How much is missed? Is it ignorance or you’re just proposing
the wrong references? Why don’t you let your works to be open to multiple interpretations?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen It’s impossible to be impartial when it comes to communicate architecture –in photos, videos or in any other format-. And
what we do is to add another layer of opacity or partiality with all these particular references.

Mauricio Pezo We assume this partiality. And therefore it’s impossible to fully explain a work through media. So people are just receiving
interpretations. We never try to close the circle: we just try to provide a few clues or references. We’re against Eco or Barthes’ active readers,
demanding us artists to reduce the quantity of information provided in order to allow free interpretations or conceptual linkages –to stimulate the
reader’s responsibility-. Our references are not projective references: they’re conceptual. Oppenheim, Martínez Estrada or Ferrari aren’t recalled so
you could track the decisions we made in our projects: They’re ideas and just a glimpse of our intellectual background, which we share in a particular
moment, in a specific project.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen A mental background which is slightly describing what we were thinking about.

Mauricio Pezo And it’s actually very contemporary to do direct references, like –for instance- doing a work with some resemblance to something made
by Donald Judo, referencing him. It’s about making a formal analogy, and we’re not into that. We’re interested in the problematization of these
references.

OA We’d like to continue on this subject. Let’s recall the case of Zaera-Polo, which is quite paradigmatic when it comes to reject univocal
readings –you even mentioned him in our last interview-.

Mauricio Pezo They [FOA] were one of the first ones who came up with this idea of a liquid design process: since projects have so many inputs, they
decided to let all of these factors to actually shape the project in a sort of irresponsible way. This way, their projects didn’t have a specific form. Problem
was that they contradicted themselves once they wanted to convince their clients, in competitions, etc: they relied on literal analogies like “this is a big
boat”, “this is a TV” or whatever, which ends up undermining the project’s content, because it wasn’t designed according to architectural requirements
–it was just marketing-. Our references are quite different. We don’t use them in our projects; we’re not trying to explain its form: it’s about the
intellectual background nurturing the design process.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen And most of them are reused in many projects.

OA Risk is that you might be labeled as snobs by ignorant and shallow critics.

Mauricio Pezo That’s true. But that’s part of a parallel exercise. For instance, when you explain a project and assume the codes of that explanation –its
communication parameters, like 200 or 300 words [we could well write a book about a single work]- you just suggest a few problematic keys in order to
broaden a certain mindset, because the very users of that building aren’t the same people who are actually reading that description. It’s not the same. It
isn’t like if there was a direct relationship between what the architect is saying and what’s actually happening on site –they’re like parallel dimensions-.
So if there’s a student reading an interview quoting some Perec stuff, he can either ignore that reference –which might prevent him from a deeper
insight on the work- or he can check out some Perec book.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen And all those references are ideas; they’re part of our own intellectual background. I believe that’s the most important
distinction in our way of writing our briefs –we don’t rationalize them before or after the project is complete-. People in Cornell did both things: they

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make, for instance, some parametric design and then they post-rationalized what they just done, making up a new discourse right from scratch.

VI. SCALE SHIFT

OA You’ve insisted with a very well defined set of spatial formats. They all have been tested with residential commissions and one of the
questions that we didn’t had the chance to ask you in our last interview had to do with your formats’ capability to endure a scale shift. We’re
asking because there’re several other offices which didn’t succeeded in doing this, like –for example- Atelier Bow-wow: even thought hey
developed a very interesting array of small residential projects, their method doesn’t seem to fit into bigger projects -maybe they’ll have to
make up a new one- You now have around 10 “bigger scale” projects –like Gold, Indigo or MAMM-. Did you use the same kind of conceptual
logics of the smaller scale ones?

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen First thing I’d have to say is that scale will always affect the initial conditions. We have a method based on small decisions.
And these decisions are asymmetrically connected in small scale projects –they have to be adapted to the nuances of each case-. But things are
symmetric once you try with a bigger one –small decisions are repeated throughout the whole system-.

Mauricio Pezo Our method is made out of two parts and both operate using some sort of particles –like pointillism painting-. One is like a diaphragm, in
which the particle adapts itself to different circumstances, thus producing irregular results. And the other one is an invariant rule which is applied to the
whole system –thus producing a symmetric system-. This regularity allows us to have total control over the whole and reduce the risk in big scale
projects. Once this particle is depurated, qualified and optimized in terms of technology, space and else, we can actually repeat it throughout the whole
project, with no exceptions. And this is the system we use in foreign projects like Zaragoza or Gold Building here in Concepcion –they are regular and
symmetric-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Those two ought to be regular. We just tried to radicalize that initial condition.

Mauricio Pezo Indeed. The particle rules the whole system. And this way we control the project by means of reducing the set of factors in the more
complex ones. That’s why we divide them into smaller units. I mean, we’re actually doing parametric design –just like the gringos-, but our parameters
are already as processed as possible in order to resist different scenarios. As for the domestic commissions –where everything is exceptional- the
parameter is like a flexible unit embedded in a regular context. It has to adopt these circumstances; it’s all about sustaining the coherence of the
project’s formal structure in spite of all of the circumstances and accidents.

OA But why did you started with residences? Don’t you have an explicit will to deal with big scale commissions?

Mauricio Pezo Well, competitions aren’t our thing. They demand you to go straight to the negotiation process, the strategy behind the whole story, how
to make it passable. You have to be politically correct, with silly arguments like “being open to the city” or “using cutting edge materials”. That’s why
they don’t get our message, because we’re into other subjects which have nothing to do with this kind of political correctness.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen And we don’t really ambition this scale shift –like, for instance, if we’d won a competition- . Because it’s really hard to know
if this scale shift means more complexity –it’s actually about the program and its own exceptionalities-. For instance, the case of Indigo [a hotel] was
very ambiguous, because it proposed a series of very interesting public spaces, and now we’re facing our most difficult task to date: to shift scales in
the residential realm –i.e. Gold and R15- while reducing its risks to minimum levels.

Mauricio Pezo It’s a challenge, because it’s quite different from doing other big scale projects like museums of a cathedrals. It can be anything but
exceptional, because nobody desires something unknown, and in the case of social housing, well, nobody is really interested in them being special. The
challenge is to find a very specific way to stress these conditions a little bit.Broadly, we’re quite comfortable with these residential commissions. It’s
actually very fascinating for us to consider th is generic program –with average conditions, average beds and repetitive elements- but still try to
propose multiple organizations determining a certain way of life.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen But even though program is the same, big scale and small scale residences are radically different: small scale starts with
clients, while the other ones doesn’t really have a defined user. That’s why we have to be strategic.

OA But aren’t you tired of working on all these time consuming commissions –which are also less profitable-?

Mauricio Pezo If you compare a 12.000 sqm. building like Gold or a 160 sqm. house like Fosc house, well, the number of drawings, problems and time
is actually equivalent. But small scale requires you to have a certain sensibility and intimate contact with the things you’re designing, and that’s why
architects try to avoid this kind of projects –they’re a pain in the neck, because they consume way too much time-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen But we do want to remain as a small office.

Mauricio Pezo Yes. And there’s the building scale, the quantity of buildings you can actually manage and the scale of your own office. I believe it’s
absolutely insane to be developing the conceptual stage of more than two or three projects. But if you aspire to work on only one type of scale, well,
that will surely condition your office’s size as well as your way of dealing with your projects.

VII. SERIES

OA Sori, Rivo, Poli, Farm, Isla, Wolf, Marf, Baum and Fosc: they all can be labeled as part of a series of very compact houses with a thick
perforated perimeter. You’ve been able to display different strategies which have been repeated in many of these exercises, like double or
triple heights, visual crossings, etc.

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Regarding this method, we have a series of hypotheses: mostly everyone –us included- believes that Poli is the best try of this series
–because of its raw simplicity, its site, its interior and especially because it didn’t had a well defined client-. But it seems that you have been
giving up on this almost mandatory extrusion of the perimeter, testing grounds with new typologies, like Parr’s unfolding in just one floor
–focusing on the roof’s topography-, Pael’s suburban balcony or Cien’s block and tower.

While the first series was strict and compact, this second try is something different. We’re not talking about quality or something like that:
question is about this new found heterodoxy –for instance, Cien could well be one of Atelier Bow-Wow’s houses-

In short, they all display the original set of internal operations, but there’s a radical shift in terms of its outer appearance: while Wolf resists
its banal surroundings, Pael starts with a compromise to the mental wellness of its neighbors. Do you agree with this diagnose? Is it that
you’ve changed your way of approaching the context?

Mauricio Pezo When you say that we do this kind of extrusion of the plan’s silhouette, a certain surface which is folded over the façade or perforating
a wall, well, you’re actually talking about project operations –manipulations of form-. But thing is that we never explain our works that way, because we
understand it’s just part of the language you’re using –an internal language, embedded in a certain coherent idea-. We don’t care about the operations:
to explain those steps is like a caricature of being coherent, a-la Bjarke Ingels or some other Dutchs that tend to simply present a lineal set of
operations like some sort of script.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen Like user-friendly explanations.

Mauricio Pezo Which are also full-proof. But our method is different, based on a mechanic and repetitive insistence on small decisions which end up
shaping the whole work. Therefore we can’t really explain our operations in one or three movements –there’re just too many and too insignificant to be
isolated-. It’s hard to show them all at once, because there’re some dimensional leaps that we can’t really explain through a lineal script. And it’s quite
strange when we write something or give a lecture, because you’re forced to establish a lineal code. It can be lineal, yes, because it has a certain time
frame. But there’s not a lineal sequence of operations. Same thing happens with a complete work: there’s a series of spatial sequences, but you can’t
really say that it’s all about the material, it’s all about context, or vice-versa –that’s just a pseudo-scientific thing to do when you want to make it simple,
but it doesn’t mean anything-. When we work with a series of projects, we try to work with methodological insistence. And there’s two types of series:
the one in which one projects contaminates the other –that doesn’t end in just one project, like a family of works- and there’s also a series within each
individual project –a series of decisions relying on the systematic use of a certain particle or principle-. It’s a pointillist method. And it’s the same with
our installations: 100 people with raincoats, 2800 red sacks, 120 doors and so on: the particle is just one little effort and the sum of all these
responsibilities is the oeuvre. This is quite useful for a small practice like ours –everything is equivalent and everything can be added-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen But we’ve never planned it to be like a fixed series with some predetermined qualities. It’s just a body of works which you
can read as a series, which is quite rewarding for me, because it shows a certain insistence and consistency in the way we deal with these ideas.

VIII. SOLO

OA If Poli was like your own masterpiece, we’d like to know if there will be the same kind of intensity in your new works, particularly Solo
House. We’re speculating, that’s true, but thing is that this work embodies the end of a series and the start of a new one; it has Poli’s
severity but also a new found symmetry which is quite different from all of your prior projects –which were all about asymmetry,
maladjustments or irregularity-. Do you agree with us? Is it like a natural evolution from the original series –including Poli-? Which are the
motives behind Solo’s new format?

Mauricio Pezo As I said before: there’s a series within each individual project, and each one of these cases has a series of its own. Let’s answer the
following mathematic question: Which one is more regular? A system of different elements regularly arranged or a system of identical elements
randomly arranged? I really don’t know the answer. Poli’s irregular system used similar elements, while Solo has only one decision which is
a-directional, a-hierarchic, regular, etc –just like Palladio’s Villa Rotonda-. It’s detached from its context. And that’s a consequence of these two formal
systems, because both of them were thought as internal series, with one having a deep link between context and the program’s specific situations,
while the other is completely detached from any particular condition.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen It’s just like what you said before -very strict and compact volumes- about dealing with the exterior space of the projects. If
the first series is very strict and compact –with a very clear distinction between inside and outside, working inside this boundary- the case of Parr or
many of the new ones is much more complex.

Mauricio Pezo The internal formulation of the work –its own serial system- replaces the idea of form with the concept of formats. That is to say that we
don’t want it to be expressive or figurative, but to establish a certain starting point which may enable us to deal with all of its potential –a certain
extension, magnitude and direction-. Unlike forms, formats are like a work field in which you can manage a series of different tensions. Its internal
adjustments will depend on each case –it could well be formal or informal-. While it tends to be more formal in natural settings like Poli or Rivo, it’s much
more informal in urban scenarios like Wolf or Fosc, in which the particular format –the decisions we’ve made- assimilates the uncertainty of the
potential relationships happening in that context. The inside is a whole different story: how formal or informal can it be? For instance, Parr’s units are
very rigid, but the whole is actually quite irregular, while Cien unifies its horizontal extension with its own vertical condition in one single format, which
doesn’t have any kind of formal ambition –and this may allow you to implement some slight variations-.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen I think it would be very illustrative to draw some kind of animal showing the evolution and mutations of our projects in order
to present all of these shifts form different points of view –in terms of program arrangements, the distribution of the elements, etc-. But we’re in no way
interested in the formal aspect of this mutation -it is just a mere consequence-.

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Mauricio Pezo It’s quite the opposite from Eisenman’s form exploring system, with each case as an excuse to verify a system that you already know,
with a set of pre-arranged steps. His cases are just circumstances of the whole system, while our body of work is about adapting the system to each
case –each case will set its own set of specific conditions-. Thing I don’t buy is this thing some architects do, pretending to start from zero, like some
sort of mental tabula rasa –it’s both pretentious and irresponsible, Because you’re working within a certain mental frame which is often shared by many
of your own projects-. They’re just fooling around; trying to generate a new grammar in each try –we’re not into that-.

OA But if that’s one thing you’d want to avoid at all costs, then the other extreme would be to operate just like Rossi or the Analogue
Architects, which is actually quite different from your method.

Mauricio Pezo For sure. Actually, our aim is to limit the set of formal resources –like compositive resources- in order to use the most generic
resources we could imagine -without forms, just formats-; to work in an certain abstract field which is generic enough for us to insist on the same
operations in each try-. We’re not using something that’s like our signature feature, like Rossi’s windows or Botta’s archs, which always end up being
like expressions of the author’s identity. We’re not like that; our formats don’t have any signature trace or something like that. But it’s really weird that
you can really recognize our hand in the work as a whole.

OA So then, which is the actual difference between you and, for instance, SANAA’s formats?

Mauricio Pezo They have formal strategies –like an amoeba-shaped horizontal block- with a very powerful identity, just like a typological definition.
They label their projects into many groups, and this helps them to tolerate different programs, scales or contexts. And it shows -they seem so easily
designed, so simple-. The explanation is quite simple as well: this is like gruyere cheese. So when you see the building once it’s completed, well, it’s the
same: gruyere cheese. Our proposals are based on the idea of having a series of works, which actually precedes the type –it’s methodological-; Our
formats are generic and neutral.

Sofía Von Ellrichshausen We’re very different from SANAA or some of the Swiss. Our starting points are completely different –SANAA has this
heritage, a tradition of essential constructions, while the Swiss case is all about sophistication-.

Mauricio Pezo And our case is based on economy. Some people might say: “no. they don’t have any oeuvres. Only God can do that” [laughs].

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