Fines y principios

Resumen

This article starts with a confession by the author regarding her difficulties in understanding the allusions that are normally made with the term "place" and her suspicion that every author gives a meaning to it that is convenient to justify their proposal. There are many myths around this idea, and it is worth mentioning that it is a part of the prosaic program, the client brings it on table. Hardly ever, the architect chooses the location, and most of the time it constitutes a mundane reference. Sometimes it has been said that "the place dictates the project"; this postulate can generate false expectations and must only be considered as a certain poetic license. Despite the expectatives of the expression, the author believes that it is the project that shapes the site, an usally undefined environment , and not the other way around.
In order to point out some common ground on this topic, several analysis strategies could be adopted. One possibility is to put ourselves in the place of the author before starting the project and try to see what he/ she saw. From there we would have the advantage of knowing the finished project and be able to evaluate the decisions made in which the place played a key role.
It could maybe be useful to look back at one of Le Corbusier's projects conceived without a specific previously site -the house for his parents in Leman Lake-, for example; or one of his projects carried out without him ever visiting it -the Curruchet House in La Plata.