[manifesto] Montjuïc Manifesto: the Good construction

Montjuïc Manifesto
For a dignified Architecture, for an ethical construction: the Good construction.

The professionals and citizens who are committed to the present manifesto have done so as individuals. Each commitment is personal, rather than a collective one. Consequently, it is not a manifesto for all architects, but a manifesto by those who vehemently commit themselves to a particular ethical obligation towards good construction and on behalf of those who voluntarily adhere to this ethic, to declare that:

we believe architecture is called to be constructed in order to be inhabited by people in accordance with their resources and technical standards, with their sensibilities and cultures and in correspondence with their time, place and condition. Humanity has traditionally assumed that architecture and cities are acts for the protection of people and their domination of nature;

on the other hand, we attest that architecture and cities evolve with total independence from the beliefs and even the existence of these diverse professional agents who intervene in the construction and architecture of cities;

we denounce that construction today, in our professional, social, cultural and environmental context has a problem of partnerships and alliances that requires the reclamation of the responsibility of architects, as people who lead the negotiation of the resources at the disposal of the society in order to realize the conditions for architecture;

we defend our determination and the will to solve, through construction, the materialization in architecture of the infinite possibilities of the relationship between ideas and things, between collective and individual, between abstraction and reality, between place and landscape, between public and private, between art and life, between people. In good construction, in addition to the commitment and the will to materialize the rigor of the construction process, a specific response to objective needs should be implicit from the earliest drawings of the project. This is the sign of good construction;

our personal commitment is in the defence of the ideation of the relationships that lead to what we claim as good architecture. It must necessarily be established through the architectural project and rigorous construction which we understand to be one and the same. Project and construction must seek the response to the what, before the how, without renouncing either one, through the responsible implementation of: knowledge, realistic time management, the sharing of experience, energy and emotion, intellectual risk and innovation, the avoidance of the needlessly superfluous and cowardice, the rejection of convenient opportunistic behaviour, the constant revision of prejudices and acquired habits, the cautious use of technological advances in research technologies that simulate an ethical construction and the attentive sensibility that recognizes the importance of collective requirements of the people above all other considerations, including personal aesthetic opinions, creative or economic.

Confronting the 'seeming' architectures of labels, doubtful or sterile intentions, of pure affectation, suggestive of opportunistic corrections, representative of the ordinary and commonplace, we are committed to the 'existence' of an architecture without adjectives, of good construction, without mediation. We are committed to architectures and cities for people.


Edited WW/Berlin 29 May 07

[thanks to Cristina Chu and Wilfried Wang]