ARCHITECTURE DU MONDE 
                  (english-français)

                          CIUDAD ABIERTA 
                   RITOQUE, CHILE 

The Ciudad Abierta, founded in 1970 on Ritoque sand dunes, north of Valparaiso, was born out of the encounter between poetry and different professions, united in the search for a consonance between speech and action. The project dates back to the 50s when the Design and Architecture School of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso in Chile primed a process of research and reflection on their own work, guided by the poetic word.

In 1965, a group of architects, designers, poets, artists and philosophers undertook an expedition (travesía) through the South American continent, from Cape Horn to the Santa Cruz Sierra in Bolivia. The group was moved by the vastness of the territory; which led them to develop a reflection on being American. It is from this fundamental experience, embodied through the poem of Amereida (“Aeneid” American), that Ciudad Abierta was born, a city that faces the Pacific Ocean and which collects the poetic gestures  through interventions (actos) but also by spoken word. Subsequently, an agora (place to discuss) was built, followed by hospederías (places to live), public spaces (places to go) and the cemetery (the ultimate places for rest).

1970.Les membres de l’association à la conquête des dunes pour la future Ciudad Abierta © Archivo Histórico José Vial Armstrong

Everything happens here through the union of life, work and study; a unit that becomes possible thanks to hospitality, a principle that was established with the place, with the peoples themselves and with visitors, called hosts. Being hostis the first mode of relationship can be established with the Ciudad Abierta. Whenever we present our work, the opportunity offered to us to present our creativity in its most intimate aspects and, therefore, all that is shown here is the demonstration of the spirit of openness that poetry can offer.

Edros ©Archivo Histórico José Vial Armstrong

CIUDAD ABIERTA. RITOQUE, CHILE.

A few kilometers north of Valparaiso, a group of architects, painters, sculptors and poets  created in 1971 a place where architecture leaves its mathematical and rational hegemony to be closer to nature again. A space of experimentation where poetry is needed as an act intended by the founder, Chilean architect Alberto Cruz and the Argentinian poet Godofredo Iommi.  The winding road stretches to Ritoque, name of the village near the Ciudad Abierta, along the Pacific coast from Valparaiso, and then moves away to cross a huge stretch of dunes.

Windroller (Eolo) ©Archivo Histórico José Vial Armstrong

In this area of 270 hectares, where marine vegetation breaks the uniformity of the stretch of sand, one discovers surprising buildings of imagination, closer to science fiction. Sandy paths lead to different constructions: facades shaped sails filled by the wind, like a space ship that seems to have asked, from a neighboring star, wooden house whose roof recalls the ocean waves very close…

Influenced by Mallarmé, Rimbaud and André Breton Surrealism , the founders, some of whom teach at theCatholic University of Valparaiso, wanted to enroll in the tradition of Le Corbusier and make architecture a way of being and thinking. The Ciudad Abierta must be a laboratory, a cooperative of businesses without social or economic link, an area of ​​freedom of expression and creation on leading architectures and sculptures that can not be conducted elsewhere because of dependent rules, urban habits or lack of political will, or simply because  they were too bold.

Photographie de chantier, Pórtico de los Huéspedes, Ciudad Abierta, 201 © Summer Chantier 2015

La Ciudad abierta de Amereida, Chile. Utopia in Progress © CIVA

The audacity of the works is the result of the status of a philosophical and poetic spirit that reigned in this form of cooperative: to make possible the vision, the imagination of each member. Each hospederia (hostel) was built to house its architect, the sculptor, or poet, performed without a plan, otherwise succinct and thought by all. These constructions (fifteen) are meant to be light and constantly changing. Moreover, some scaffolding remains  and blends into the construction. If one disassembles it to improve or revise the forms, the materials are recovered and used for other projects. A workshop helps prepare for this.

One room, called the music room, served as an agora where people congregated without hierarchy, without power, without doctrine, just enough to organize and give birth to each of visions. Some courses of the Valparaiso University of architecture were given there. Some unfinishied sculptures made of wood, stone or iron linked the buildings together. Because of their respective isolation, in this vast sea of space, they retained their character and poetry.   Within the dunes, a cemetery or  rather a work of art. There, among other members of the early days of the Ciudad Abierta, lay Godofredo Iommi and his wife Ximena.

 info:

Expo:

“La Ciudad abierta de Amereida, Chile. 
Utopia in Progress”
October 02  to December 13 2015
CIVA ExtraMuros
Espace architecture La Cambre Horta, ULB.
19bis Place Flageyplein
Bruxelles 1050

La Ville ouverte d’Amereida

                                                Valparaiso - Chili

                                  

 Implantée miraculeusement au cœur d’un immense paysage de dunes, exposée aux "vents et marées" à l’érosion, et principalement à la critique pragmatique, La Ciudad abierta ("Ville ouverte"), conçue et réalisée à Ritoque (Valparaiso-Chili) à partir des années 1970, est un site d'expérimentation et d'enseignement depuis 40 ans, fondé par l'Ecole d'architecture de la PUC Valparaiso et la Corporación Cultural Amereida. 

Devenue mythique au niveau national, elle rejoint autour d'une idée de la production poétique d'objets et d'espaces paysagers intégré à l’architecture. 

Les participants à cette expérience de longue durée, sont architectes, sculpteurs, poètes, urbanistes, intellectuels et praticiens de tout genre. Les résultats des leurs expériences, éphémères ou pérennes, émeuvent un public mondial.

Des expositions à travers le monde, dévoilent l’expérience pionnière des œuvres, résultante de l'état d'esprit philosophique et poétique qui y règne au sein du couple université-association, pour y rendre possible l’imaginaire et apprendre à posséder l'intuition de l’avenir…

Merci Amereida, source d’inspiration créative universel !

elgodiv