Wild about Georges

Rousse, Santiago de Chile, 2013, Installation Shot at MAC Parque Forestal

In 1989, the French artist Georges Rousse came to Chile. Fate intervened to bring Rousse to the Open City, as in the case of other fortunate architects, poets, and dreamers. It seems that Rousse never quite forgot this trip to Ritoque: visitors to his solo exhibition at the MAC Parque Forestal are greeted by his rendering of the Hospedería de la Rosa de los Vientos o Celdas.

Up Up and Away

Membrana Aerofuselada, 1992. Ciudad Abierta. Scanned from Manuel Casanueva’s “Libro de Torneos.” Valparaíso, Chile: e[ad] Ediciones, 2009.

The School of Valparaíso went through a glorious phase of playing games in the 1970s. They played “Membrana Aerofuselada” in 1992 in order to celebrate their 40th anniversary as an architecture school. There were a variety of games, both competitive and non-competitive, and most of them were invented by the faculty and students. Once I began studying these activities the “props” grabbed my interest: costumes, rolling contraptions, stilts, and this “membrane.”

Magellan Rounding the Cape

Taller de Amereida, 21 August 2013, Ciudad Abierta, Ritoque

A perk of my dissertation research is attending the weekly Taller de Amereida at the Open City. During these 60-minute lectures professors read passages from texts that are meaningful to them and one book has been frequently cited: Stefan Zweig’s Magellan (1938). Perhaps it was Carlos Covarrubias’s inspiring form of reading or plea for the undergraduate students to read it over the recent holiday break (even this late in the game, I can’t resist homework), I was determined to get my hands on an English translation.

Stefan Zweig, Magellan, 1938

Marginalia at the Open City

Scarcity and Creativity in Latitude 33, Map of the Open City, Ritoque, Chile, 2012

Though the Open City is an unorthodox city it still inspires map-making. The Scarcity and Creativity in Latitude 33 Studio, a 2012 collaboration between the School of Valparaíso and the Oslo School of Architecture, produced the most comprehensive maps of the Open City to date.