Cuadernos de Proyectos Arquitectónicos (May 2016)
Dialogue, a critical space
Abstract
Abstract Jean Badovici was a Rumanian architect dedicated to the criticism and diffusion of the modern architecture in the París of the Europe between the wars. Since 1924, and emulating Paul Valéry in 'Eupalinos or the architect', he began to publish some dialogues texts where he addressed questions to one second voice – Eileen Gray- around concepts of the architectural thought. In this article there will be analyzed the issues approached mainly in the entitleds dialogues, 'The maison d'aujourd'hui', 'L'Architecture utilitaire' and 'D'eclectisme au doute'; from the aspects more specific related to architectural - form, function, utility, machinery, hygiene, rationalization or type- even those, that transversely to the technical, deal with philosophical issues - beauty, aesthetic activity, abstraction, art or universality-. All of them are developed under the understanding of architecture as a science dependent on others, and at the same time as a discipline framed in the transmigration of contemporary movements such as cubism, abstraction and constructivism that aspired to a unit away from any kind of eclecticism. The dialectic method explores two approaches enriched thanks to otherness, to what the other person says. The dialogue, without apparent end, represents a way of invitation to understanding where the movement of ideas along the time favors the appropriate open space to generate a theory that relativizes the polyphonic speeches.The critique always arises from a question in the search of the objective thing, and therefore besides being based on solid arguments, must be dialectic. Any trial, in this framework of doubt, it is susceptible to conflicting interpretations; therefore the formulation of a question demanding -thesis - waiting for a reply - antithesis - is an appropriate procedure able to test any kind of truth.
