Architecture summer program in Santiago de Compostela, SPAIN, July 2018.
LIVING IN ARCHITECTURE | THINKING THROUGH YOUR HANDS
The COMPOSTELAs summer program focuses on how students can learn from living in architecture. Our students benefit from their stay in Santiago de Compostela, designated a World Heritage City by the UNESCO in 1993 because of the architectural value of its old city centre.
In the other hand the program emphasizes as well on learning with one's hands and the direct engagement with current urban issues: students evaluate urban conditions of the city using sketches and models, and then present their insights and proposals to local elected officials.
Academically the program is structured in five equally important parts:
Tours, Lectures, Materials Workshops, Sketching Plazas and Studio
PLURALITY. City Tours: Projects by EISENMAN, GALLEGO, GRASSI, HEJDUK, SIZA & VIAPLANA
Besides the value of the historical centre, the city is also home to an important number of contemporary architectural masterpieces designed by leading architects –Eisenman, Gallego, Grassi, Hejduk, Siza, Viaplana, and others. Our “Compostelas” summer program takes advantage of this important heritage by organizing daily visits to works of architecture such as the CGAC museum by Siza and the City of Culture by Eisenman. The tours are led by architects that were involved in the design of each building and present to the students the each project's theoretical background.
MULTIPLE PERSPECTIVES. Diverse disciplines
The program works in collaboration with the University of Santiago and scholars give lectures on the history of the city, including on the XVI th century monastery that is home to our classrooms and studios. This offers the students perspectives on architecture from a historian's or a landscape scholar's point of view, perspectives that are different from those of architects. Linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists teaching at the University or part of the Spanish National Research Council contribute unconventional views on architecture.
LEARNING FROM THE CRAFTSMEN: Thinking by hand
In order to help students develop a tectonic sense of architecture, the program includes workshops with local craftsmen that introduce the students to the three main materials used in the old city: stone, wood and iron. During these workshops students have the opportunity to work with their hands on each of the materials in this way the students gain a deeper understanding of materiality and through this a more comprehensive understanding of the city. These are lessons that will benefit their future work in architecture.
LEARNING FROM THE CITY: The public space
The city of Santiago it is famous because all its monuments -cathedral, convents- but also for its public spaces -Plaza Quintana, Plaza Obradoiro- and we would like the students to learn from the city sketching by hand every day the main public spaces.
ROOTED ON ITS SOCIETY: “El Camino," as architecture.
Knowledge of the socio-cultural conditions of the city of Santiago and its politics are a fundamental part of the students' experience. Every year the program works with city representatives to develop a series of problems on which the students work, and at the end of the program students present to elected officials alternative design solutions. This year the studios worked on the pilgrimage experience and on connections between “El Camino” and the city itself. The program also invites artists –musicians, sculptors- working with similar issues into the studios and they provide the students with new ideas as to how to effect architectural investigations.
Architect, photographer and filmmaker. Co-director of the art&architecture magazine O-monografías, graduated at Madrid Architecture Polytechnics School. He has collaborated with Ábalos &Herreros, D.Chipperfield Architects, M. Gallego, Stan Allen and Tuñon and Mansilla. Pedro Barrie de la Maza Foundation Scholarship holder he realizes a Master of Science at the GSAPP, Columbia University NY, recipient of the William Kinne Fellows Award in 2000 and Europan 8 first prize at Coimbra, Portugal. His practice has work in London, New York and Galicia, Spain, has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, XXX Pontevedra Art Biennale, CGAC in S.Compostela and Arquerias Nuevos Ministerios,Madrid,.
Oscar Fuertes studied architecture in Coruña, Spain and the Accademia della Architettura di Mendrisio, Switzerland. He has a master's degree from Coruña University. He is a member of the Spanish Commissioner the exhibition Architetti Ticinesse nel Mondo. He collaborates with CSA and with the COAG -Galician Association of Architects- in the european project "Dorna"
Mrs . Sieira coordinates the Housing Studio and the Architecture History/Theory sequence in the graduate program at Pratt Institute's School of Architecture. She teaches architecture design studios that focus on sustainable urban projects and seminars on film and on installation art. She is a registered architect in New York State and in 2007 founded Xoguete Architecture, a critical practice firm engaged in design research and one that provides architecture services. She worked on the Cidade da Cultura, in Santiago de Compostela, while at Eisenman Architects , NY.
TUITION: 2850 euros includes assistance to all the program activities -tours, lectures, sketching classes, studio and craftsmen ateliers- and also includes LUNCH at the monastery during the weekdays and an individual ROOM at one of the dorms of the University of Santiago.
VISA: Each student will have to apply for his own student-visa after being accepted in our program and paying at least a deposit -300- euros or the total tuition amount
SCHOLARSHIPS: The program offers also few scholarships for students of special academical merit and with a proof of his economical needs.
PROFESSORS: Pablo Gallego, Carmen Fabregat, Oscar Fuertes, Maria Pokrovskaya, María Sieira.