Alma, Cuerpo, & Espíritu is an urban planning and landscaping project that links the Kennedy Park in San Pedro de Montes de Oca with Los Yoses´ Boulevard through a floating park for pedestrians. In this way the phenomenon of La Fuente de la Hispanidad, its architectural-cultural heritage and potential as a civic center is studied in depth; and problems related to public space and its privatization are solved: the lack of dialogue between the pedestrian and the city, and the priority that vehicles have in the area. The architectural project is a biological corridor for the recreation of a convulsed society and for the celebration of a patriotic and poetic identity. Soul, Body, & Spirit is a parallelism with structure, form, and function; understanding that both human beings and architecture are closely related and that since ancient times every civilization has made manifest its ideologies and philosophical principles in the construction of its habitats and its cities.
The vision and interpretation of architecture has been related to light since ancient times. Light in space is what defines it; giving it the notion of time and in some way, making it real through perception. The study of architecture is a broad study that covers perceptual philosophical topics: Space, time and matter. From the scientific and technical perspective, to the artistic and poetic.
The contemporary obscurantism that stalks our civilization through virtual reality has immersed us in a mental slavery state. Bad consumption habits, cars, cell phones, social media, everything for our dehumanization. The human being has lost sight of its tripartite essence, and therefore goes astray in the superficiality of everything around, digressing in junk information, bad habits, new diseases and all kind of problems that contemporary culture suffers due its lack of true spirituality and awakening to the real pura vida that we can still get to have. It is necessary for people to turn their eyes, their whole being, to Light.
Light, undulating and linearly flashing, is the essential material of life and is therefore a symbol itself. Both movements of light, according to contemporary quantum mechanics, give meaning to space and the material study of objects in time. Light is a poem of life that affects every corner known by man. Thus, any absence of it makes the gloom, the darkness, the shadow. These concepts are also part of architecture as partners of a polar world. The world of shadows, studied by analytic psychology, is a universe hidden in the unconscious. Darkness in the world is as necessary as the light that causes it. This play of light and shadow has affected and will continue to affect architecture in the play of volumes that throughout history has made refuge, rite, and power, through the symbol (the architectural object and its components). This is because architecture, loaded with countless symbolisms, is a source for all of them to many cultures and traditions, linked by associative libraries, by analog abstractions, to real life and our perception of it. The door, the window, the path, the dome, the vault, the garden, etc. All these architectural elements constitute with the imaginary, poetic representations of the oniric and the spiritual in the deep psyche of man.
The semantic study of architecture to decipher and design with it our habitat, urban facilities, metaphysical landscapes and all series of architectural assemblies, are one of the topics to be deeply developed for the construction of a critical thinking with this thesis project.
Throughout history, whenever a civilization has evolved into significant achievements, it has always been due to a kind of enlightenment. The light is food to the mind that receives it with gratitude and applies it to the building. Light as wisdom or understanding for the luminaries in society, has guided man to see, to observe through the senses, all appreciations with syncretism.
In the ancient Ur of the Chaldeans, the historical character of Nimrod decided to build the mythological Tower of Babel to reach who he believed his father, the Sun. Many years later, during the Jewish Exodus, the Tabernacle was built with a series of specific instructions to symbolically represent the promise of the Messiah. Thus, many examples of architecture have been built as symbolic reference of something cosmic, something that is craved or desired. That is because architecture happens to be, when it is done well, a part of a cosmic order that belongs to space, and is linked not only to time and culture, but also to its landscape, its spiritual context.
Architecture then, from its primitive origin with the menhir, the dolmen, and perhaps even earlier with the cave, has been and will continue to be a response to the human need of inhabiting space, shaping it by concepts or ideals.
As a necessity, architecture does not differ from any other need that is satisfied through expression, through imitation of nature, immediately becoming part of it by the spatial character it occupies. That is to say, the need of corporal expression in the human being that causes him to dance by imitation of fire or water, does not differ from his need to communicate the seen or imagined through the painting, the writing, the sculpture, and others pure artistic manifestations. In this way, architecture, the mother of the arts (because it presides by space), is an ethnological, anthropological, cultural, and therefore, spiritual manifesto through the architectural object, its habitat and its link with the natural environment. The architect as an artist who expresses himself according to his need or that of the world, talks with his material montage and with the composition of his work, about his time and his raison d'être in the historical context to which it belongs.
“The artist is the speaker of the psychic secrets of his time, involuntarily, like a prophet, he believes to speak from himself, but it is the spirit of the time who dictates his words.”
- Manuel de Prada (Art, Architecture and Assembly)
Nowadays the massive constructions made as disposable products are dehumanized typologies that speak of a capitalist society with a lifestyle far from what can be called spiritual. Architecture is going through a critical stage in terms of avant-garde, and if it does not stop its course towards the ruthless robotization of the human being, it will end up harboring only numbed bodies with sorrowful spirits. Architectural constructions, according to the Situationist Movement, speak of the theatrical work of life that happens in the scenarios or scenographies of space. What kind of tragedy will society be interpreting if things keep going as they are in urbanism and landscape design strategies for the city of San José?
Spatial poetics is therefore a relevant theme for the reconciliation of man with space, with its own intimate space, and with the city. Not only must man be awaken from his lethargy to his own spiritual, mental and physical needs, but once awake, he must appropriate his civil and humanitarian responsibility to achieve his fulfillment as an individual, as a citizen, and thus fulfilling his unique purpose in life. Many people live tied to the leash of logic and reason, acting with the sociocultural currents that dictate their modus operandi. It is necessary for people to reconcile with themselves and thus with the cosmic order that operates in nature. I believe that the cultural phenomena at La Fuente de la Hispanidad are an example of how a space can become a tool for social activation and reinterpretation of a national poetic behavior.
Paradise and Utopia in the City
Wherever we place our paradises speaks of our spiritual vision and how we inhabit them, of our culture. We can find them in a look, in a body of clouds, in a reflection of lights, in the rain, in a fraternal embrace, or in a park, a garden, a square, a place to be. It is the responsibility of architects to promote the paradisiacal use of architecture, and to use its language to approach everything that fosshes between the darkness of life and its activity. Today, perhaps like never before, it is necessary that we look to the sky and reflect on the inner need of the human being. In this way we can, with a divine grace, face the spatial problems of our civilization and thus reverberate in their psyche, as a wake-up call
Lets add value to this metaphysical landscape and develop the construction of projects with this kind of approach, for it is the most radical and problem-solving solution to our nation`s need for public space.
ALMA, CUERPO & ESPÍRITU ( SOUL, BODY & SPIRIT) 2018, San José, Costa Rica. Fabián Alvarado Aguilar
