Against the Glorification of the Architecture of Charity.

Eduardo Cadaval

A few months ago, the Babelia supplement of the newspaper El País published a portrait of the Hindu architect Anupama Kundoo on the front page. The inside article also talked about his work, however what stood out on the cover was not one of his projects or their social repercussions, but the image of the character. With a “star-system” in low hours due to the repercussions of the 2008 economic crisis, the system is replicated but with new characters: selfless heroes who are going to save the world.

Kundoo. – who is bothered by the label of “socially responsible architect” has explained that she is only “an architect”, that because of her condition and origin she works in certain places but that her work is like that of any other professional. The problem is that the broadcasting business – and education too – needs to promote and consume characters so that the wheel continues to turn, and therefore it seems pertinent to warn about the danger of the distortion of the message, especially in students and young architects .

Architecture is part of a huge industry, that of construction, which generates millions and millions of jobs around the world and which represents a very high percentage of the gross domestic product of each country. An industry that pays taxes with which are paid from parks to social services and of which architects are only a small part although we like to think otherwise.

The problem with the editorial label of “socially responsible architect” (something had to replace exhausted sustainability) is that it is not only simplistic but also irresponsible. It generates expectations about job opportunities that in many cases do not exist and that will become frustrations for young students who were made to believe that this way they could save the world. In an enormous act of pride, the architect reveals himself to be one more small piece of the puzzle; You cannot be like a gardener or an accountant, nor like a university professor or the bus driver that allows many people to arrive at your home or workplace every morning. It is good to be part of the machinery that makes society work, but you have to be more: a hero, like footballers.

After the European economic crisis, many young architects found career opportunities helping people in need in many parts of the world. But it is also true that on many other occasions, and with tremendously paternalistic attitudes, Latin America and Africa were flooded with young architects expelled from the labor market and willing to throw a cable as long as it was their way: “poor underdeveloped, I’m going to teach you how to make a latrine, -which you already know how to do-, but this one will look “cool”, I will take some photos and live from the story giving workshops and lectures for a while.

Many of the false saviors have already returned or found an opportunity to protect themselves from the storm in the academy somewhere in the world, but the repercussions and the pseudo-savior craze are still up in the air. The orphaned media of references found in the exploits of the missionaries, material to exonerate themselves from the monster they had helped to create. I would like to clarify that here is not questioned who really works for a specific cause, but the glorification of the saving character; Figures stand out, not efforts, and that is part of the problem.

We are not heroes or perhaps we are through the small contribution of our work to a complex system. I repeat: architecture is part of an industry that generates millions of jobs, with the benefits of which the libraries are paid in part, or the social workers who work in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. In this sense, the architect who works making a classroom in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro or Caracas is as necessary as the architect who works in a construction company making buildings or bridges that create job opportunities so that the father of the favela child can also work and have your own opportunities.