 Welcome. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jorge Otero Pailos, and I am the Director of the Historic Preservation Program here at GSAP. And tonight I want to welcome you to the Paul-Espire Memorial Lecture, which will be delivered this year by Cecilia Puga and Paola Velasco directly from their studio in Santiago de Chile. I want to acknowledge the support of Platt-buyer DeVal White Architects for this lecture over the years and that of Rosalie Byrd, and we are grateful for your generosity. In a 2018 interview, Cecilia Puga was asked to answer a simple question that has no easy answer. What are you trying to achieve with your work? asked the journalist. Her answer was a startling and unique as her buildings. A ruin, she said. So how can an architect wish to achieve a ruin? Her answer stands in sharp contrast to those we've become accustomed to hearing, almost as cliches, such as, I want to achieve sustainability or social justice or beauty. By the way, she could have answered any of those things and the interviewer would have been satisfied because the buildings that she designs together with her partner, Paola Velasco, achieve those goals too, of course. But those goals are secondary to what Puga and Velasco are after. They insist they want to achieve ruins. Now, needless to say, from a business development standpoint, this is not a great way to get clients, especially in Chile, a land vexed by earthquakes that regularly reduce buildings to ruins. The whole emphasis of the profession is to prevent ruins from happening. But insofar as Puga and Velasco's work insist on the pursuit of ruins, it really cuts against the grain of the profession in a fundamental way. Now, to be sure, Puga and Velasco's buildings are not meant to fall down during earthquakes. That's not the kind of ruin they want to achieve. That's the vulgar ruin, the ruin is rubble, the ruin is senseless aftermath of catastrophe. For them, a ruin is an idea, a concept that describes the elements of a building that are most resistant, that endure over time. The designs of Puga and Velasco pursue the ruin because they are after the toughest, the most resistant, the most enduring aspects of architecture. The ruin for them is an intention, a goal, as well as a form of attention, a compass that they return to to orient their work. But where is that compass? Or more importantly, we may ask, what form does that compass take? It takes the form of other buildings, existing buildings, old buildings, the buildings that have lasted, the buildings that have survived the assault of time, of ignorance, and even neglect. These buildings have lessons to teach about what it takes to endure, to last. And Puga and Velasco pay attention to those old buildings. They study them, they listen to them, and most importantly, they respond to them with their own buildings. This dialogue between old and new, expressed through architecture, is something that Paul Byrd understood and devoted his life to. Byrd was an architect, a lawyer, and for many years director of the historic preservation program at GSAP. For him, a dialogue did not mean agreement. A dialogue could be an argument over a disagreement. As a lawyer, he was a master of debating in print. As an architect, he could express an argument architecturally like no other. Above all, Byrd believed that arguments have to be based on principled arguments and never on personal whimsy. Through his books and his buildings, he showed that old buildings make arguments about the world. And those arguments change over time. And while we might disagree with those arguments, if they're principled and well supported, they should have the right to express them. And Byrd, you can tell, was an advocate for freedom of speech. And buildings for him were sophisticated forms of human communication. He wrote, quote, protecting their expression requires a capacity to appreciate the interaction of the successive proposals buildings inevitably make about themselves and about each other over time, the impacts of architecture on architecture. And to make principled judgments about the way they should change in light of the public's enduring need to have access to particular protected meanings. Now note how Byrd introduced the public here as a kind of jury listening to the arguments that buildings make about each other. There's much of the legal mind here. Architecture, he insisted, should serve the public interest. And the public should be the judge of what lasts and what doesn't. What to preserve and what to let go of. Or to use Pugan Velasco's idea, what will rise to the level of a ruin and what won't. Pugan Velasco's mastery of architectural expression. Their ability to engage with existing buildings through their designs has earned them important awards and recognition in Chile and internationally. They've also won major competitions, including the infrastructure design project for quite national park, the master plan and preliminary project for punta arenas international passenger terminal in the Chilean pavilion for extra Dubai 2020. This last project in association with architect Smilya and radish. Tonight they will present the recently completed headquarters of Chile's Ministry of cultures and heritage. The project, which I had the privilege of seeing in a trip last year to Chile is a masterful dialogue between old and new in a fitting tribute to the memory of Paul Byrd. It's an honor to welcome Cecilia Puga and Paula Velasco to Columbia University and to the Graduate School of architecture planning and preservation. Please join me virtually as you may and joining in welcoming them very warmly to our podium. Thank you. Thank you very much. Jorge for your beautiful introduction. We are very honored to be part of the pool by our Memorial lecture today with Paula Velasco. And we really want to thank you and all the team of the historical preservation program for having invited us today. So what we will show you is a single project we have just finished as Jorge said just before. And but first of all, we want to tell you a little bit about the context in which this building is now finished. We are trying out ourself now in Chile in the middle of a historical process, a deep crisis that started in October 2019, which marches and street riot, then led to debate decisions and an important citizen referendum that has left us in charge of preparing a new constitutional constitution for our country. It will replace the 1980 constitution rewriting and impose under dictatorship. In April 20, 2021, Chile will go to the polls once again to elect the members of a constituent assembly made up of citizen politicians and independent. Next time in history, this assembly will ensure gender parity and the presence of representative of native communities in its work and deliberation session. The system of practically elected constitute assembly will occupy two locations in Santiago, one public and the other originally private, the Palace of the former National Congress from 1876, and the recently recovered palace These two buildings were inaugurated in the 19th century already in the Republican period and designed by the French architect Lucien Enou. Both of them raised the new classical style that reaches our country as a flagship of the value of the enlightenment in the public sphere, as well as the backdrop for the new socialization of the country's elite. It is therefore quite symbolic that the Chilean state had chosen these two buildings to host the discussion about the basis of our future coexistence. Resisting the private sector intention to turn into real estate business, the decision by the state of Chile to recover, restore and conserve the Pereira Palace represented from the beginning the will to democratize a domestic space. Now, that is opening to the city is a fact. There has been no lack of controversy. Will we be able to protect this building from the impact of social movement whose energy rage and this content has been partially expressed through the scratching and burning of building. What was it was it appropriate to remove through an almost surgical operation and 100 of our storage. All the layer of industrial pain that were superimposed on the quoting that were still preserved from the second half of the 19th century, and thus leave the building raw to the outside. How to protect the world of so many years again, an environment that does not prioritize the issue of heritage conservation. Last December, in light of the event in the street of Santiago, Jorge was invited by the subsecretaria del patrimonio cultural to discuss along with other expect and contemporary views, a proposal for the protection of the palacio period. We then addressed our ambition to turn the building skin into a surface capable of absorbing the historical moment on the way. As an art installation that could receive contain and preserve the mood of the moment, while at the same time protecting the building. The foundation was large and resources were very small. The pandemic ending up throwing overboard any attempt to to conjugate this concern from interaction and registration rather than from repression. The greater palace will be as public space integrated to the capital city of Chile, its protection and conservation are linked to its reinsertion in the urban programmatic fabric with through the constituent debate restored this building to the republican life. So our lecture this, this evening is called amalgam and just a position we think these two words represent very carefully the operation we have done in the in the old building. In 1970, in 1872, Senator and businessman Luis Perreira commissioned French architect Luciano, the design of a new urban mansion for his family. Santiago was the end in the process of a rapid modernization, the need to build the identity of a new republic that was the verge of its founding centenary was beginning to promote a serious major public work in the city. Lucien was one of several European professional that the Chilean government appointed to design emblematic work for the new republican institution. Under the wing of Jean Nicolas Louis Durand, Henri Labros and Eugène Violet-Le-Duc, the three of them captain of the French structural and parametric rationalism, you know arrived in Chile in 1856. In parallel to his public work, enough forge linked with the local elite and accepted some private commission such as Mr. Perreira and his family residence. He developed a building of neoclassical composition using ionic and Corinthian order with two level in its main front. Keeping up the continuous facade typical of Santiago from National Quarter, setting up follow the colonial tradition. Typological, it incorporated new uses and distributive system addressing a more integrated and complex stratification of social relations. At the same time, it provided a proper theatrical backdrop to the everyday life for the 1918 19th century local elite. The concept constitute the major feature of the plan. It organize and orientate the most significant spaces in the ground floor, leading to our courtyard that occupy the back of the property and separated the services areas from those used by the family. This space acted as a sort of interior street, a place of circulation and counters and representation in all treated the surfaces of it walls as public facade using the opening relief and ornament to create a sense of rhythm and the feeling of an urban scenario. During the first half of the past century, the palace ceased to be a residency. From then on, it underwent different uses which lead to a series of alterations to the building. At the end of the 70s and shortly after being declared a national monument by the state of Chile, the building entered a phase of decay and abandonment due to a complete lack of maintenance which produced varying level of deterioration from partial collapse to a wide range of structural and superficial damage. The passing of time provided the building with what romanticism used to call the sublime. Its material decay suggested a former glory, so inspiring and veneration. What had begun as the built expression of an European nice said elite acquired through itself inflicted abandonment the patina of a reality of its own, given the building a singular place within Santiago's cultural context. The house became a silent testimony of a crumbling social structure. Paradoxically, sometimes a ruin can become more of a process than that of a fixed image. In this case, after 40 years of abandonment, what was left of the palace operator became a powerful mobilizer of energy thoughts and actions. In 2011, the Chilean state, which 155 years earlier had brought enough from Paris to design public building, brought the palace in order to transform it into the headquarters of the recently created Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage. The following year, Chile's cultural office called for a public architectural competition to restore the historical house and design an extension to host the new institution. Our design team Cecilia Puga, Paula Velasco and Alberto Moleto were together with a group of advisor and specialist in the field of restoration and structural engineer and consolidation. Alan Chandler from England, Luis Sercos from Spain, Fernando Perez, Pedro Bartolome and Cristian Sandoval were part of our team. Our proposal got the first prize and the commission of the work. The Pereira Palace competition offered a starting point from which to attend the meeting of two potential antagonist positions, conservation and renovation. The way in which these two concerts were articulated in the intervention was crucial to inject life in the building, wrapping, protecting and incorporating uterineous conditions. The two position, one modern, one traditional, inevitably clashed at a physical point and this aspect required the utmost care. The truth of the building is inherent in the vernacular architect so valued by William Morris. However, the articulation of this true became effectively necessary once our ability to camouflage the structure and material for symbolic purpose became widespread. You know, material operation of the Pará Supereda was clearly theatrical. Its final expression was willfully orchestrated to generate a backdrop of increasingly sophisticated social relation of the mid-19th century elites. And was from being intent to express the material truth of the building with the ring had exposed. The work of the recovery historic building is a constant struggle to rebuild and discover refraining from altering or destroying. Without accepting the radical change that the discovery brings, there could be no interpretation. History shapes our intellectual relationship with the past based on physical and material realities. Modernity is characterized by the standardization of assembly and the tactics of using components. A delicate material aesthetic in contrast to a traditional construction based on intervention that operate through the fitting interconnection and accumulation of operation that seeks to protect soft material through the use of the invisible harder ones. The fashion of both materials reality through painstaking attention to detail challenge the polarization of the historical and the modern. Manufactured materials can bring and tie together, as well as adding levels of protection, but they require the tidiness that Morris demand in a way that restore a lively architecture. With the spirit of the past event embedded in its remodeling. The question of how to deal with the materiality of the building, as it was became key to the project. In selecting the material strategy, the project sought to draw attention to the complexity of enabling a ring. Without prioritizing either the new intervention nor its elegant and decadent nature. Through a delicate material repair that combined contemporary analysis technique, seeking to achieve precise specification on mortars stucco and mastery. And the ventured use of the super resistant resin and steel to join suture and consolidate the construction. The rinse of the building were maintained and consolidated. This allowed for a building in which new activities could take place answering Morris call to continue to add layers to the history of the site. The work started in 2016. Palacio Perrero original structure underwent a thoughtful material restoration that combined contemporary analysis technique to achieve precise specification on mortars stucco and masonry. After several months, most of the original fabric had been striped and cleaned. At the same time, the factory wall were in field and structurally repair. A complete engineering study was done in order to define a structural reinforcement criteria. The aim was to have as few intervention as possible with a small number of accurate operation that may ensure the stability of the building facing future earthquake. From the beginning, we knew that in addition to the material historical and symbolic aspect of the monument, we had to recover and preserve the structural performance of the building. This implied that the structural consolidation has to be done by means of surgical and minimal operation, which we achieved thanks to the fact that the project technical unit accepted that we use the Italian seismic standard instead of the Chilean one, which will have forced off to build a concrete supporting structure throughout the building. In addition to repair the endless crack with metal insert and resims, which is concrete diagra, diafract, were built on all floors and ceiling, which hold all interior and exterior wall together, allowing the building to work structurally as a whole again. At the same time, the reinforcement of every existing opening with a 10mm thick embedded steel frame that solved the issue of stability that the structure had was introduced. The reinforcement were done were really the minimum. The competition rule established three degree of intervention. One referred to the glaze gallery and the facade, where a good part of the finishing and ornament were preserved was defined. In both cases, an intervention were requested that will enhance the original neoclassical ornamental orders and rhythm, and that will carefully recover the historical remain of stucco and molding. Another aim at those spaces that preserved the masonry structure but had lost any original ornamental layer. Here the intervention had degree of freedom to define the termination without affecting the historical element. Finally, the one referred to the new construction that had occupied the site free space and in which there was freedom to propose a contemporary and autonomous architecture in relation to the existing building. A preliminary test for the restoration work were conducted on a fragment of the facade in order to guess the implication that the removal of dirt and several layers of paint will imply. After that first field study, we had a clear idea of the original color and the actual state of the surfaces. A careful operation of cleaning was then implemented to reveal the original color of the building obscured behind dust and paint. The same operation also resulted in a survey on the real condition and state of the building surfaces and the amount of mises ornament, which unveiled the tension between the wheel of conservation and the needs of renovation. Because in the facade and in the transept, our proposal avoided the massive reconstruction of the lost ornament and limited the reconstruction to the main order element, those that allow us to understand the rhythm and structure of the space conceived by Lucien Eno. We established that we will only reconstruct cleaned pilaster capitals and cornices, and that all the rest of the ornament of the secondary order that has been lost will remain as traces and testimony of the passing of time in the body of the building. This significant part of the work in the space of the transept was meant to restore its wall and recover their dense rich texture. This work were done in the same level and intensity as the exterior envelope facade, let's say. Several steps of cleaning and removing dust and painting to later dismantle all pieces that may be in risk of falling were done in the first step of the work. The intervention did not aim for a continuous surface. Quite the contrary, it looked to stabilize what was left and talk about missing parts. Avoiding highlighting fragmentation and detail looking for visual integrity for a certain distance. Here you can see some detail of the renovation. The flooring was another opportunity. The original hard tile were gone, leaving a neutral surface that turned the systematic rational layout of the plan created by rationalists trained Eno into a field, a series of equivalent spaces, not the direction, no end, no one after the other. An expected condition of discontinuous mute horizontal surfaces merge equivalent into a sequence of non hierarchical spaces. Quite different from the rigorously decorated carpet like panel that Eno designed to emphasize the autonomy and self unity of each space, section and room within the palace. For instance, in the transept, our proposal embraces the idea of a flooring scheme that promoted the feeling of an open plan with no direction under their mind and to such a degree that could promote changes and displacement. The floor is seen as a slick surface that opposed to the heavily textured ceiling wall retaining the atmospheric condition that the ring offer. It resulted in the use of a smooth surface of walnut hardwood floor that runs throughout the interior space and softened the borderline between individual and collective secondary and hierarchical elements. The roof and ceiling were not original flat texture surface but three dimensional elements above the interior space. As a clock over and above, the concave surface of their edges met the walls creating the feeling of a protected autonomous space. With the heavily decorated original ceilings, we proposed the use of a sealed screen timber ceilings with motifs from the time the palace was built. In some of the salons, we choose William Morris pattern as both quote and homage. Local artists participate in this job and their craftsmanship was central to the restoration recovering all traders for the architecture. As opposed to the discreet flooring, these ceilings characterized the space of the upper level taking advantage of the close connection to the street and the people in the sidewalks who will be able to see these motifs from the outside. Fallen floors on the other side had create double hide spaces and it expanded the mention within the rational plan offer opportunity for the reconfiguration of the overall building. Fallen ceilings and fallen and wall finishing expose the constructive reality of the existing fabric, giving it rough work stripped of everything that was perishable and allowing unexpected understanding on the structure and the nature of its construction. In fact, this expose detailing allow a deeper knowledge on building technique of the time and even its replication and translation to present components. Rather than rebuild the double hide boy that appeared after the deck failed was consolidating as a response to this tension between conservation and renovation. The way in which these two concepts were articulated in the intervention was crucial to inject life in the building, caring, protecting and embracing its condition of ruin, providing a new sense to this absence and taking the opportunity to introduce present time. The most ordinary walls are now exposed as a testimonies of massive backstage of the regional ornament surface. Whereas to bronze Licoidal staircase complete this vertical spaces and connect to system of walkways that are part of the new circulation that the proposal added to the system. Its polish surface reflect the monthly roughness and differentiation, so different times and technological context through time colliding in the space of the work. The third degree of intervention correspond to the new structure insert in the empty area of the plot. Following the footprint of the regional typology of the palace, which relate to the transit with the courtyard and its site corridors, the new intervention is responsible for filling the blanks resulting from successive demolition and collapses. Giving back to the building it is fashion structure in a contemporary way. The new building in filled back and spaces in order to became a single entity, which the remains of the palace aiming to recover its old structure by means of a discrete restoration. By shifting the circulation from the central axis to a perimeter ring, the new and the old building, the public and the private areas as well as the ministry program and those this denied for a public use, such as the library cafeteria exhibition hall and glaze garden were articulated. At the same time, the new structure embodied a negotiation between all historical time collapsing in one space, the idea of a stimulating and co-existent of different periods and ebbs overlap. Time and history have decanted in this current state, leaving a significant imprint that interact with the renal condition of the building. The new wind surround the courtyard giving the space to the corridor and gallery that create a three dimensional lattice, which is the structure and text and texture interior facade at the same time. This is the three dimensional structure geometry isolated for the whole building. Using the image of an escalating the new structure emphasize the temporary and dynamic condition of what we understand as an intervention and heritage meaning a work in process of the operation that are carried out on the on the existing building. Complete columns 25 per 25 centimeter a stiffed by diagonal elements create a high density inner perimeter around the new courtyard. Those columns along the party wall constitute the systemic structure of the building and create a veil that we hope will help to produce a particular vision on history and time. By means of the light and shadow reflect on the remains of the Palacio Pereda and the site of this temporary layer in coexistence. Mostly, it proposed to have a translucent lattice. A structure that allows light and air to get inside aims to rebuild and not hide the view of the renal structure that is associated with it. Palacio Pereda. This is our, our word of our under secretary for cultural heritage in Chile, Emilio de la Serda, who was in the very beginning of the conception of the project. Palacio Pereda restoration reflect an active and contemporary position regarding the issue of heritage. The project understand heritage as something that we receive that we manage for a while, and that we then deliver enriched to future generation. The project therefore has an understanding of time. One that not only receive but build future heritage. To do that, there is no other way than a determined commitment to quality during the time in which we live. And with the conviction that the development of complex society put more viable at stake than purely economic one with heritage being an element and indeed an integral part of development. Thank you very much for your patience. Fabulous. Thank you so much for a fantastic presentation and we have some time for questions. So I just want to start by noting to the audience that if you'd like to pose some questions, we'll be monitoring the question board over here in the Q&A. So just please post your questions to the Q&A and we will address them and read them off to Cecilia and to Paula. It's wonderful to hear both of you go into such a level of detail on this one project. And I just really appreciate that because so often presentations tend to try to cover so much and so much. So many projects but actually cover them only superficially. So I really appreciate the opportunity to dig deep into this incredibly complex project because it is complex both tectonically, socially, environmentally, politically that there are so many layers to it. So I want to go back to where you started, which was the political situation under which this project has taken place. This is a moment of tremendous upheaval in Chile, a new constitution. This is something that doesn't happen every day, a new constitution, but also of destruction. I mean, there has been a ton of destruction on the streets and a lot of that destruction has been targeted at monuments. Some of them are monuments of figures that have a past that is questionable. But others have been directed, some of that violence has been directed at buildings that are government buildings. And so you've done this incredible, delicate conservation of the facade of this building that shows us the parts that remain, the subtle differences in shade of color, the way you treat it, the stucco. You give us this opportunity to read the history of this building. But of course, the history now is that this is now a canvas for spray paint and for other kinds of violence. So how do you think about that? How do you think about this moment in relationship to your architecture in terms of your own thinking about time and about the role of public buildings? This is a publicly owned monument, architectural monument. How do you think the new constitution, what is the role of public building in this process? Do you think that at one point in your lecture you said that history shapes our relationship to the past? And clearly you're talking about architectural history buildings, they shape our relationship to the past. So to restate my question in a different way, how do you think the Palacio Ferreira is going to shape the public's understanding of the nation's history? What story about the nation's history does this building tell? Well, I think this building is telling many stories at the same time. Of course, one is the urban development to the east part of the city in the mid of the 19th century and where the palace was one of the elements that were built in that area. Making some kind of bid for a development, a new urban development that never happened actually. So somehow the building born in a wrong place somehow. It was a big renovation in the second half of the 19th century of Santiago. There were urban planning for the modernization of the city, very strong, very powerful renovation. And so one of the main issue was that development to that part of the city. But that part of the city never really attract the people that were supposed to build in there and start to be a middle class area of the city that consolidate in the first half of the 20th century. So this palace became, and while it was not just that one, there were several, they became a single important element isolated from the beginning. And so that is one history. The other history that can this building talk about, it's about the possibility of a structure from the 19th century to host different uses. This building was a family house, was also a school for girls for many years, was an institution for party, for left wing parties in the 17th and etc. And all that different program were adopted by the building without really big transformation. You have to say that the big, big damage of the building was due to the last owner that was a businessman which bought the building to build a 20 floor building inside the plot. So he wanted, he produced, he promote somehow the destruction of the building. And that, and the resilience and the resistance that the city developed protecting the building is another very long story also. And then there is now this history of a building that started to be a private house for a very small than exclusive elite in the end of the 19th century and will become a public space. It is renovated and all the first floor is, the program is designated for public program. So it become now part of the urban fabric, of the public urban fabric. And in doing that, it is exposed, it is exposed of the rest of the city as you said. And the challenge today for us as architects, but also for people that is taking care of the city and irritating Chile is very hard because there is the building and architecture and the city becomes some kind of of testimony of a very precise and critical moment in history. So I think the moment when you came to Chile and we discuss about if it is possible to protect a building, not just putting fences and enclosing, but incorporated to the city and to make that skin at the same time as a protection layer to a very welcoming the expression of the public and the social will. We thought that was the very important and the very interesting goal of it. And of course, there is always a discussion with the government process are very long. Well, you know very well what happened you were in the middle of the process. Oh, I don't know if you can you want to say something else about that. I just will add that the, that this building has been the public realm, like for the last 12 years has appeared in the newspaper, not just a the architects or the, the public, the person that work in the in the building when we're pushing this building to be recovered and so the common people also was pushing so in somehow I think that it gives the today the building is open and they can see the effort. It gives to the people and and and the idea that the building is not going to be just a building of the state is going to have a public area that is going to be part of the memory of the other places in the center of Santiago. It gives a refresh idea of the place that you wanted to write a, the way that we are going to live together. So instead of being in a bunker or maybe in a building that people think that is a, it's public but it's private in a way, I think that that can help to maybe how do you say that to a relief tensions. That could be a wishful thinking. We really don't know. We, we think anyway we think we have to do something and we are thinking about that with Emilio de la Serda and all the team who are in charge of that. The, the, the incredible thing is that what had protected that sure faces the original color and all of that was the amount of layer we have removed. Dust. Yes, and dust and painting and district painting. There were almost six or seven different layers that were removed with, with, you know, like by restore restoration are very careful and, and so we leave the building with it's, it's, it's built. Yeah, with absolutely naked. It has not, not any more any kind of layer of protection now. So it is a big, big challenge. And, and of course, we can be very radical, for example, just painting it again. And then to conserve, we have, we know what we have below. And then we paint it and with that we protect that layer, the original historical later, or we go further, thinking of an intervention that seems in the middle of an art, urban art operation and protection artifact. And that was the idea when Emilio invited you to Santiago. Right. Well, it's striking, you know, what I think is really amazing about this project is of course this is going to be, if not already, I don't know if they've moved in already the ministry that will oversee heritage all over Chile. So in a sense, it is a statement about the government's position on heritage. And both the care that you've taken in the original building, but also the boldness of your intervention of your new design signals a kind of attitude about an embrace of contemporary architecture and indeed contemporary art within within the realm of heritage. And I was really struck by the by the clarity of your project, you know, the idea of your reconstituting the typology of this building, the courtyard that was lost because of this developer. And then away your project is both finished and unfinished because you use the metaphor of the scaffolding, which is, of course, sends up so many memories of Ile Leduc because he described the scaffolding as as an artifact of war. You know, you is its origin is in medieval siege warfare. So you put it up to both save the building but also to take it apart. So there is a kind of delicate nature to your project in the and almost you could take it away. Right. It's a scaffold you put in you take away, but it's also the opposite. It's also the thing that's holding the integrity, the structural integrity of the whole building together. It is this most solid thing. And that that double reading of your addition is both the most fragile and the most solid thing in the whole project is to me very interesting relationship to what you just said, which to what you said originally, which was, and this is I'm getting to my question, which was. This division you make between soft and hard materials. How do you think of a material as soft or as hard? What what what is that division for you? Well, first of all, I wanted to come from your your first part of the presentation of the question. It's about preservation and and and and the and the building given to life again. And I think that the new building is what is happening is what is is making that happen. The new building, of course, enlarge the surface of the of the existing or historical building so allowing the the ministry to to inhabit it. So and and that is something that has been discussed many times in in restoration discussion and preservation about what is the better way to to maintain to protect to to to to to assure the the extension of life for the for the heritage architecture building. It's it's maintaining life in it. It's renovating. It's including all the needs for contemporary uses. So to not to maintain its use on time. And I think the new building is doing that. It's it's really giving that possibility to the remains of the old one. So that is the first role and and somehow this scaffolding is and protection act in that way in in in that dimension, which is contrary to the musification of the monument. You know, it's a radical and opposite strategy. And so that is the I think that the main main point and coming to the to the differentiation of the the different layer in in in the in the building and in the new in the new structure. What we have been carefully developed was a structure and material condition that at the at the same time that is dialoguing and and allowing a connection in in many symbolic in visual and atmospheric, etc. It is also maintaining very carefully distance and very accurate distance to the old building, which is clearly more soft than the new one. It's soft, but at the same time, it has survived for 150 years and with the 40 of them with an owner that wanted it to be demolished. So somehow this this masonry structure is a very, very strong structure and and we think that the the performance of the building, the structural performance is one of the very important quality that has to be preserved. And that's why we we define the material operation and the way we intervene in the different in the different part of the building taking care about this differentiation of quality of material and and and soft and more hard that can be exposed and leave it in contact with the new. This, I want to acknowledge the what you just said, you know, an underscore what you just said about the role of the public in in really preserving this building that for 30 years there was a long preservation battle to to preserve this building against the owner of the building who wanted to tear it down. And so in that sense, the public has, I, you know, it seems to me co created the work with you there is a, you know, you're the architects you gave voice to the public but the public and preservation activists were central to this and that story I think is really central to to the story of heritage. We have a question of concerning this from the audience that I'm going to read off to you from an anonymous attendee saying Jonathan Hill in his text the architecture of ruin mentions that the idea of the ruin indicates that the present situation is not inevitable. It implies an alternative future. In this context, have you speculated about the different possibilities that the palacio pereira will bring to future uses. I think the person is thinking about what happens if the ministry moves out. Have you thought about that or is your, are you, is your building and the way you've shaped it. A glove for the ministry that will not be able to be something else in the future. First, before answering the question I will add off what you say about this public intent and a big effort of buying and calling the competition. I think that they are like the principal actors because they somehow when they call for the competition they gave to us a scope. A scope that define like a new approach that at that point the the the heritage ministry was looking for and they were sure that this building were going to embrace that so I will say that the all the first action of the state to buy the building to call for an open competition to create an important technical document which we can use was an important part of the success of the result that we see together and we see right now. And I'm going to the the question of the ring I will say that it is a it is always a continuous dialogue between what you can reserve and what what you can a what you can find a that wasn't expected of what you knew from the building and inductors the building is kind of a generic space so we didn't transform the the the the old building. We use the spaces in the size that they were and and and and somehow the people that inhabit the building accommodate to those spaces which in those times were quite generous on space and hide. And and and this in the same way that the new building is see it's thought as an open plan an open plan that can change and receive a different uses whenever it's still so when we made a competition this way was going to be the offices of a particular department of the heritage ministry and now we can see an actually smell the first time that we see that the the program is shift so I would say that both in their contemporaneity are somehow generic spaces that can accommodate and have all the today they have all the technical facilities to reinvent itself maybe in a period of hundred years from now. I think that is a very important point and and I think that is one of the virtue of the palace. The plan is absolutely amazing. It's a very very systematic and repetitive grid with the same span in the old spaces and in a very rational organization of the site and the plot and the structural performance of the brick system. So what we have done is to somehow in the in the language of today and possibility is to recreate our own open plan. So in the in the 19th century building this repetition with the with the span is enough big to support many different programs and enough small to really contain them in the interior spaces. And so the the the other side of of our answer was in front of that was create this open plan with this grid of linear element in a module of 1.59 meter which came from from the facade written and and that open plan it's allowing different possibility of division partitions and or absolutely open. And so that I think there is a new dialogue between this generic space from the 19th century and from the modern modern system open by in the in the early 20s or with the open plan in architecture. We were shifting gears slightly we have a technical question. Your project is among many many things a seismic retrofit structural seismic retrofit. And we have a question from Tim Michelle's who's a professor in the search preservation program who says thank you for the fascinating presentation and for sharing so many technical details. Could you clarify the choice of a concrete diaphragm in an originally masonry and wood building. Was the concrete applied over the timber floors or were their original floor beams removed and replaced with concrete. The approach seems surprising as concrete tends to increase seismic mass and it's used therefore often strongly discouraged and unreinforced masonry. Is the problem linked to the Chilean seismic code rescriptions for heritage you mentioned. So very technical question but yeah but it's a very it's a very it's a key question and and it was for us a big big discussion because until we don't have we don't have actually a mass mass brick structure. Regulation and we have a very strong we have very very strong earthquakes earthquakes so we have a very very strong regulation for that. And at the beginning what was for us the main issue was to maintain the performance of the original building but at the same time because. The roof and the floor and the beams and the plants were removed and and in that condition the building has suffered several earthquake all the different elements all the walls were were disconnected. There were gap in between the wall sometime bigger than 10 centimeter so to to to make the building again. Work as an unit in terms of structural. Response to the to the earthquake it was absolutely needed to connect all the walls and the only way we had was through the the ceiling and floor. So what we did was to maintain the original beams the structural beams the the original wood beams are the ones that are supported that seven centimeter slab of concrete that is connected to the to the. To the beam and there is a perimeter element of concrete also, which is just not it's not inside of not in bed in there so it's is it's just beside. And and it is interrupting each part where the beam that the the wood beam connect to the original fabric of the in brick so the the what we have done was to replace the one who were lost of the the original beam. We use similar eight pieces of wood, so all of them were from demolition building from the same time, so to assure the same kind of performance in terms of. Changement in the wood and then after doing that we build this seven centimeter. element and slap and so the building is still the structure is still the same as it was originally so the beam the wood beams are those that are supported the whole thing. But this was an important negotiation because. I said, we until a the way that you would have done this is to make like a. We said a sock a skin off a concrete, you know, so the the the wall the. This is the main structure of the building wouldn't work by itself, it would have to work by the wall that cover and and and and cover all the walls. This is because we don't that what our regulation ask us to do so we speak with our. With the engineers of the of the state and the government and and they allow us to use the Italian in regulation. So that is which one the top that which regulation the Italian. The you use the different countries regulation. Yes, we use a different country. How did that happen. Same a seismic. A behavior that Chile or similar so. They just ask us to put this a seven centimeter slab of concrete so at the beginning we were just a rebuilding the diagram the diaphragms as with the timber beams, but this was a requirement and and a proposition of our engineer. Well, we have to say that in the in our team in the engineering team we had a young engineer with who was just arriving to Chile and his PhD thesis was a focus on. structural modeling of brick building from the 19th century. So he was part of our team and the whole thing he was absolutely and he knew very very well the regulation in Italy he studied in there his PhD was done there. And so he developed together with our the leader of the team of engineer Pedro Bartolomé. They develop an argument and they discuss for many time it was a long discussion and a long negotiation between our engineering team and the engineering team of the government. At the end, and that negotiation allow us to do a very, very light and unique. I would have to say unique intervention in Chile using this regulation. That's extraordinary. I've never heard of a country exceptionally using the building code of another country for a particular project. That's amazing. That's amazing. I mean it speaks to both the the uniqueness of this project, but maybe the next question is asking us to think about this project in terms of not its uniqueness but its character as a model for the future. And the question comes from Mariana Flynn, Avila Flynn, talking and I read talking about the present and future development in Chile. Do you see this project as a milestone for the future ways of approaching new construction in Chile? Well, you know, this renovation, restoration and I think probably never it had been... It's the first time that it has been. Yeah, and the amount of resources, technical and money and so on is absolutely unique. It haven't happened before that. But we know that this is now a very referential and very important model for facing the new recovering and renovation of heritage building. And not just because of the technical issue, which was the first time that in Chile one of the building were faces archaeological recovering. It was really, but also because the way it interact with contemporary architecture and contemporary technique. I think in the both level, the technical and the architectonic and symbolic and so on, this building is really making a statement. And a statement that is, as you said before, is a statement done by the government because they were the one who defined the rules for this competition. And those elements were already defined somehow in the basis of the competition. So it's not us to make the statement. It was a public statement. And I think for them, this is absolutely a key issue today in Chile. Well, I mean, one of the things that I noticed right away with your project and your practice, I think more generally in all your projects is the interdisciplinary character of it. How open you are and in fact how integral it is for you to work with different kinds of people, different kinds of minds. You put together these incredible teams of you find these people that are, you know, like this engineer that you're describing. But you're also very attuned to the public and the needs of the public. And that gives a kind of clarity to the project because you use the word decanting. You use the word decanting the kind of moment. And I wanted to ask you maybe one last, I mean, there's so much we could talk about, but there's one last question that I wanted to ask you about that the organic life as opposed to the inorganic life in the building. I couldn't help but notice these plants these inside of the of the gallery spaces. And I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about those. You, as I recall you had cut some holes on the floor of the building to make room for the plants. And so why, why did you do that. You know, for us. What was really a big challenge and also very exciting for us was to identify on the ruin, which were the opportunities that the, the, the, the stage of the ruin. And that allowed us to understand other possibilities for the building, other times, other, other understanding also. And one of them very important of course was the floor, the, the, the, there was not any kind of path man, there was the earth and soil, soil, yes. And that allowed us to understand the structure of the building absolutely differently. If the, the soil, the, the, the path men were already done where you can really understand a collection of rooms and not a pattern, a three dimensional pattern as it is. And the other was the somehow the, the natural that, that were invading the, the ruin. When we are right there at the beginning, there were trees on the building tree, big tree, I mean, 10 meters trees inside, because the, the, the degree of abandonment and and so big that nobody had cut that tree and grow and grow and grow. And at the same time, we had a lot of images from the early 20s, early, early, the beginning of the 20th century with about this gallery, this concept, which was full of big pots and with palm and exotic plants on it. So what we did was to intensify that condition. So somehow there is something that is coming from the earth that arose in the space. And then there are other that can be removable inside. And we are making some kind of memory or some kind of remembering about this condition of nature that, that never stop that energy is in there is in the earth waiting for a moment to grow. And, and the palace allow that the ruins allow that. And so we keep it. And, and, and that is one of the reason for that. But the winter garden that was there and that that. And, and, and also the idea of shifting the circulation from this cross section transit. The idea to give in this is kind of the key and the key piece of not just the palace maybe of the building that connect everything. But, but not in terms of circulate circulation, more in terms of life in the way that you live in the kind of thing that can happen in the conversation in the public spaces so we went from brace that as well. And adding plant will maybe stop a any intention of re converting that space in a just circulation area. There was the fact that all the rooms around the precinct around this gallery had lost or all their, their ornamental surfaces, ceiling walls, etc. It made that element is cross shape full of ornamental texture as a clear precinct. So it was like a single element that we, through this perimeter circulation we isolated from the, the circulation from from the programmatic performance that was in its beginning in the in the original concept of Luciano. And, and we made that to give to this space a positive, a positive role. So now it has its own character, it has his own clear climate, it has his own humidity, it has his own, you know, it, it offer its own experience. And you can close it, you can, you can use it in different way but the building will will continue function because the circulation were shifted to the perimeter. So that are the, the argument for for that. It's wonderful the way I mean you know so many architects when they work on a historic building the first thing they do is change the front door. And it's so nice that you kept the front door but but then you rearrange the movement around the building, right after you come in through the front doors to allow for the use of these spaces in different ways. And it's magical I mean the, the, the, the both you talk about juxtaposition but there there are these different atmospheres and the new and the old and yet they seem to speak to one another and such a, such a poetic way the light I think is what really brings them together, the way you managed to bring the light into that court where the, you know, the galleries the winter garden and then the kind of summer garden that you created in the courtyard in the back is is is really striking. So to know that this, this element in the building it's a, it's a, it's a very important climate climate climate. It's, it's an active element that's open glow. It's a different layer of shadow control so it's, it's, it has a very strong role in terms of efficiency in terms of conception of energy. And so, that is also one of the issues that explain why we choose to put inside in there to maintain let's say the green. And then in the in the room in the moment of the building. Do you see your building as a as a way to it is as a technology for climate control. Do you see as a kind of a way of adapting the the climate to the climate. It's a very passive building. I won't say technology but it's a passive building that we have like a condition or just in the new building and heating just in the inside part of the building not in this in the transit. We don't know any kind of injection of hot or cold air so I will say that somehow the, the pre existing building push us to a passive approach as well. Not just in the old building but also in the new building with the understanding the courtyard as well as with the same performance as the transit. And that means that we had to re redesign the rules of the concept the roof today is a very technical or element that has opening and control light control solar control, etc. It, it, it act as an buffer in terms of climate from the outside to the interior spaces around this. We have a number of questions here I've obviously we don't have time for all of them but would you like to take one last question, or. Yes, of course, you still have energy. Okay. So, we have in Chile we have the curfew in 30 minutes, or you have curfew. Oh my God, well then we'll then we'll make it, we'll make it. We are totally reluctant. This is in a way a appropriate then it's a question by Alonso Maldonado and he's asking about how what you did in this heritage site. What in your, I mean I'm reading paraphrasing a little bit what in your work is attempting to make a connection with the people. Are you, you know, how is your preservation design work, trying to connect to people. And I think he means the public here in the context of the social crisis in Chile is there something about the building that is trying to connect with the public. No, I think we as architect when we work in the public which Paula and I have participate in several public project. We have a responsibility to give the high standard of design high standard of solution high standard of possibility. And that is the is something that is really really important. Even if, if there is a risk, even if we will have to take some kind of temporary precautions. And maybe some do some operation in the facade and some kind of protection element. But what the project and, and, and I think it's not just us as architect but also the, the government who, who lead the whole project and give the resources for us for that is, is to give is to offer to the city to the people to the citizens, the higher standard space possible in with the resources of course and technical possibilities we have. And I think for me that is maybe the most important issue, and that is what move us and and and stimulate us in our work. And, and there are not other kind of consideration, I think that is is quite an issue for for all the designer and architect today. In a way as always you raise the standard to and ask us to think about the public is not just the people that are alive today. So, to think about the people that are yet to come. And that standard is there to meet them and to receive them and to encounter them so it's just been such a pleasure to listen to your presentation a real privilege to hear you think through your project. I just want to offer our deep appreciation and name of the school and the preservation program. Our gratitude for sharing your knowledge and experience with us across North and South. It's, it's, it's wonderful. Thanks again for joining us. Thank you for inviting and thank everybody that is now listen to us.