Proyects + Constructed Work

Rio de Janeiro Memory
+ RE-QUALIFICATION OF THE PUBLIC SPACE IN RAMOS.
RÍO DE JANEIRO +

The city council has set a political objective for this and other areas under simultaneous development: The creation, among the immense urbanized peripheries of the city, of several points capable to extend the urban effect to those districts with no culture of the use of public space. Our proposal goes from expropriating plans and regulate redactions to the development of major transport infrastructures with their interchangers.

But above all, it tries to influence the identity and multiplication aspects of a connective public space without recourses to traditional forms, a vectorial space with dynamic and static points which gets its strength from existing conflicts and contradictions, in order to give these a positive character. Rather than structural or functional solutions of a relative value, the theme of the project is to create an identity that talks about the character (chaotic if you like) of the place, in order to approximate it to Rio’s centre, with the magnificent public spaces created by Burle-Marx on the strip coast that goes from Salgado to Ipanema. With an abstract vision of the contemporary city, of that complex and attractive entity that we are talking about. And we’ve found that the first square meter that surrounds the feet of a citizen’s feet is essential for creating that effect of centrality.

Again, a surprise: to create a simple sidewalk becomes an exciting issue. Ornament can be a more effective tool than the vast transformations that so often remains on the plan. Of course there are other important aspects that take a tremendous amount of time and effort, but this is a catalyzing theme that puts the project in touch with both, the centre of Rio and the picture of the world understood as a new artificial landscape. To do it, furthermore, borrowing the images generated by an artist like Albert Oehlen based almost on a child’s picture translated to the pavements technique “Portuguese way”, has an ironical playing sense that gives us a right description and faces the ambitious objectives on the other side.

Rio de Janeiro Card
RE-QUALIFICATION OF THE PUBLIC SPACE IN RAMOS
RÍO DE JANEIRO. 1998-2002
Architects: Ábalos&Herreros, Eduardo Horta, Héctor Vigilecca
Artists Collaborator: Albert Oehlen