Building Cultures Valparaiso: pedagogy practice and poetry at the Valparaiso School of Architecture and Design

"'Building Cultures Valparaiso" investigates the radical approach to teaching and making at the School of Architecture and Design in Valparaiso, Chile. With newly commissioned essays from, among other, Beatriz Colomina, Ignacio Gonzalez Galán and Gerald Wildgruber and a collection of meticulously reproduced drawings from the school's archives, 'Building Cultures Valparaiso' is a resource for scholars and practicioners interested in alternative visions of architecture." "In August of 2014, students from three Swiss schools of architecture traveled to Chile where they joined colleagues from the Valparaiso School to initiate the construction of the 'Pórtico de los Huéspedes' in the Open City. The 'Pórtico de los Huéspedes' will house a research center and administrative offices as well as an assembly space for the collected students and faculty of the Valparaiso School. Over a three week period, students surveyed an area designated for the project and determined a site, tested and elaborated details through drawing, models, and 1:1 fabrication, and began the construction of the wooden frame of the project. The resulting structure - whose volume is based on Erik Gunnar Asplund's Woodland Chapel project form 1918-1929 - wil be continued, revised and amended over the course of the next four years."