Paulo Mendes da Rocha, MUBE museum, São Paulo. Photo by Leonardo Finotti
The word “concrete” which should simply indicate the most widely used building material really evokes, in a great many cultural contexts, contrasting scenarios and states of mind. It is usually used by the media in a negative sense, to describe the effect of real estate speculation, urban sprawl and the devastation of the landscape, whose effects may be defined as “concrete invasion”. It should therefore come as no surprise if the issue takes on a sinister and problematic character in the public opinion, capable of evoking anything but pleasant circumstances. Vice versa, to remain within the disciplinary sphere of architecture and its aficionados, the word assumes a totally positive, liberating, solidary and even poetic value and significance. As we know, cement is a binder, by means of which one makes concrete aggregates (a mix of crushed stone, sand, water and, precisely, cement) and, with the addition of steel reinforcement, which has been an essential element in any construction since the late Nineteenth century, at least to build the foundations (in the case of buildings in steel or wood), not to mention its structural uses, especially within the context of specialized works as bridges, tunnels, dams etc. But it is not the technical aspects that concern us here, nor the mechanical characters or the simplicity of use which have made concrete a “universal material”, but rather its symbolic and evocative aspects, the expressive and narrative qualities of a material which by allowing an almost infinite freedom in terms of shaping and handling, has introduced an ethical responsibility in architecture, which cannot be ignored today, upon pain of seeing our works fall into the obscure category described in the introduction.
In fact, if concrete, as a binder, gives the discipline of architecture an intrinsic character that pivots precisely on composition and thus on the art of composing (from com-ponere, or in other words to put together), it even assumes, as an industrial product, a mystical value because it reacts with water (an indispensable element) which, in a certain sense, “makes it come alive”, giving it an own identity, turning it into a kind of artificial stone material. In the “prodigious” passage from liquid to solid, concrete makes it possible to build “stones” independent from problems associated with form, as it takes on the infinite shapes of the recipient containing it, while when combined with steel it produces, in structural terms, a complex aggregate that makes it possible to create resistant and elastic continuous stones and to make concrete beams that are stronger than wooden beams, “stones” that outperform wood. Sure, if it is not so much concrete as human genius that solves the problem of the form – it is sufficient to consider the admirable convex shapes in stone and brick created by the imagination of Antoni Gaudí – it certainly makes it possible, as pliant material, to freely imagine, not Euclidian but constructive alchemies as those realized by extraordinary scientists as Eduardo Torroja, Pier Luigi Nervi, Luciano Baldessari, Félix Candela, Eero Saarinen, Eladio Dieste, Sergio Musmeci. In fact, without this subtle and very fine “gray dust” it would be impossible to enjoy the shade of the column-free portico of the Mube Museum of Sao Paolo by Paulo Mendes da Rocha, or also, merely by way of example, to admire the incredible projection of the CCTV designed by Rem Koolhaas in Beijing; while it is true that the latter is made in steel, it “stays up” thanks to incredible concrete foundations with a “monstrous” thickness. Naturally all this freedom, simplicity of use – and today also of calculation – comes at a high price, thus concrete, just like other inventions which have become widespread in the 20th century, shares the same fate, and perhaps decline, as the car; it has enabled us to move individually, to travel, to discover, to dream and to have fun, but at the same time it has generated and generates traffic, pollution, chaos and accidents. This is why, every time we mix cement, crushed stone and sand and blend it with water, waiting for the consequent chemical reaction, we must be aware of the responsibility we are assuming, because that mixture may produce poetry, a mere shelter or perhaps we should rather say desolation.
