in:
El Parque del Agua / The Water Park / Le Parc de l´Eau
Authors: Iñaki Alday, Margarita Jover,Christine Dalnoky
download article Time regained / Eduardo Arroyo 2008
“If at least, time enough were allotted to me to accomplish my work […], I would not fail to mark it with the seal of Time, the idea of which imposed itself upon me with so much force today, and I would therein describe men, if need be, as monsters occupying a place in Time infinitely more important than the restricted one reserved for them in space, a place, on the, contrary, prolonged immeasurably since, simultaneously touching widely separated years and the distant periods they have lived through—between which so many days have ranged themselves—they stand like giants immersed in Time.” Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
Marcel Proust ends the last volume of his novel with a discourse on the importance of the passing of man through space and the close link between this act and the arrangement of his days on the earth. The importance he gives to the size of man over place is always something we understand intuitively but so rarely put into practice – the priority given to persons over objects and, by extension, the priority time has in the threading days over the present material space.
How can we recognise what belongs to the arrangement of time Proust speaks of and distinguish it from what is only part of the instant and dies or disappears with its passing? Because a heavy veil of effete idioms clouds our understanding of the concept of the present, reducing its independence and makes it slave to the redeeming cliché of “our times”. Discerning timelessness has therefore become a coroner’s task requiring scalpels of sceptical criterion sharpened with distant reflection.
Zygmunt Bauman points in this direction to the penetration of consumerist logic as an explanation for the volatility of everything, as it devalues durability and eliminates perseverance in individuals who incredulously throw themselves into the realm of fleeting spectacle and fame. Applied to the architectural paradigm of his time, this is depicted as a mirage full of volatile, tenaciously homogenising architectural routines in clear contrast to the precision of the creative will. Despite the sophisticated means existing to manipulate an image and thereby overcome rivals in design competitions, there is always a last minute betrayal when the spectacle is turned into a structure and reveals its faults and ineptness like an unbridled informer. Once the object has been built, it is easier to distinguish between the craftsmen without pretence who believe in the transcendence of their work and the professionals in overwhelming mediocrity.
Margarita Jover and Iñaki Alday believe in what they do. In the same way as Maxwell closely united two sides of physics – optics and electricity – that had been complete strangers until then and merged them into a superior harmony, the two of them have been able to create objects that naturally merge space and time in a different kind of harmony that brings them closer to people while distancing them from “their time”. It is a vocation of dynamic incompleteness that allows these objects not to be deposited as sediment in any specific stylistic stratum but to connect them to the course of the days to come. We could say that the time regained for these objects is a sort of time that offers spatial experiences the understanding of which does not belong to the instant but to duration, hence their incomplete nature. It is comforting to us to know that, unlike so many other constructions, they need our presence to exist.
In recent works by AldayJover some flashes of time regained can already be detected, visions of this time-experience that we mistakenly call space, such as the swing beam in Terrassa, plate-serving door in Barcelona, variations in feral concrete in Utebo, perforated water follies in Zuera, lever operated windows in Monells and many others that can be recognised with wonder. These objects of a dynamic nature relive the solid structures that house them of the full burden of creating an architectural image while uniting space and time in corpuscles of sensitivity. The life of these works in the arrangement of time is therefore sustained by creative, crafted reflections and enhanced by the non-existence of images of ostentatious modernity.
In a flight away from trends, we find in Zaragoza surprisingly complex and "without complexes" materials such as cyclopean industrial prefabricated concrete in dialogue with apparently misplaced synthetic greenhouse textiles that accompany visitors on a vibrantly lit route through the canal pumping station building. Other examples are the corrugated steel parapets that will never have concrete poured over and which have very simple lighting incorporated, or the bamboo canes, out of their normal scale, filtering privacy in pavilions for impossible wedding. These materials are read as a programme accompanied by the different internal uses for them as a direct response to the shape of the needs that it houses. They do not adhere to the "a priori" formalism that characterise the digitalised, liquefied structures comprising the remaining Expo constructions.
Likewise, the pact that these designers have with nature seems to follow similar rules of conduct with respect to time; in the creation of the Park there is a geography that is unrecognisable either as geometry or as the desire for a finished image. They correspond exclusively to retaining water stolen from the Ebro in living containers for its decantation and recreational use. This landscape that varies with time and its retaining topography was built with the invaluable collaboration of the aquatic inertia that historically designed the meander now forming its boundary. The constructed present is thus linked to the past and foresees the future occurrences of possible floods in a design strategy created in conjunction with the uncontrolled forces of nature.
When viewing the surprising architectural mix that is at the heart of Expo Zaragoza 2008, it seems that the undeniable functional need expressed by the water-vegetation Park and by the canal pumping station and district heating and cooling buildings is a clear guarantee of their future survival compared to other objects. When the Spain Pavilion, Convention Centre, Bridge Pavilion or temporary pavilions have succumbed to their change in function, they will tell, unsurprisingly, of the ephemeral nature that is required in these types of expositions, despite all of the willing efforts to the contrary. Once again, the radical change in use shows us how the imposition of weakness and malleable inconstancy of space to architecture can turn buildings into everything and nothing at the same time.
Perhaps the Proustian concept of time regained as encapsulated by AldayJover and others of their contemporaries can only be recognised once its seed has been sown in a preliminary individual experience, which leads me to believe that no trace of political-collective activism exists in their work. It is also possible that, in order to be capable of introducing it into creative processes, it is necessary to stop believing only in the combustible present and return our presumptuous and consumerist western eyes towards other kinds of cyclical time and space as did Proust and so many others. That is why, in remembering of Corto Maltese, I believe that those who have sailed through different worlds to that of the pragmatic, with the wind caressing their hair, can never stop being the good guys.
And they probably won’t want to either.
