A arquitectura e os materiais

As nossas escolas de arquitectura, de matriz napoleónica, nunca deram uma atenção mais do que acessória à materialização das formas, aos materiais de construção... não fossem os ventos de certo funcionalismo moderno que circulavam fortes nos anos 50-60, mas em circuito quase fechado entre os alunos; mais aberto na escola do Porto. Não me parece que a situação se tenha alterado determinantemente de então para cá.

Surpreende-me que tal omissão tenha acontecido não só em Portugal mas na Europa, com altos e baixos (mais baixos do que altos) e honrosas excepções, fazendo fé no artigo Material Assets publicado em Agosto de 2004, no número 38 da revista The Architectural Review que reencontrei e vou transcrever parcialmente na lingua original, para não perder o seu fleumático humor:

"From time to time materials and materiality are of little overt importance in architecture. In the second half of the eighteenth century, for example, architects' drawings rarely indicated materials to be used (though they were presumably specified elsewere). Even window glazing bars, elements that do so much to give the detailed scale of palladian and neoclassical architecture, were usually omitted from elevation drawings. Sections rarely show what buildings are made of. Details (of the outside at least) are rare. From the drawings, buildings could be made of anything from icing sugar to mud."

"Of course they were not, and most of them have great material presence. Materials where usually chosen on economic grounds."
"Transport was a major element in material costs so, for most buildings, local sourcing materials was vital, from the very site itself as possible. So there was an often unarticulated agreement between builders and architects (where they were involved) to use tried traditional techniques. Hence the congruity of scale, texture, proportion and form of most buildings in traditional European villages, derived from native sources as different as the timber of mountain regions to the clays of flood plains. The only exceptions were grand buildings for the rich, for religion or community. Though these were often larger developments of the vernacular, sometimes huge components were transported for long distances to aid grandeur. Technologies used to transport such big objects were very similar to those used by the ancients, who from Stonehenge to the Roman Empire had learned how to haul huge pieces of stone over astonishing distances(...)"

"By the middle of the nineteenth century, new forms of mechanical production and bulk transport (canals then railways) radically altered the availability of materials(...) "In response, the theory and practice of architecture changed radically. By the mid-nineteeneth century, drawings showed every flashing and drip, pratically every nail(...)"

"Many early Moderns were happy to imitate the simplicity of poured concrete planes in masonry and stucco; like the Neoclassicists a century earlier, they were concerned to achieve forms and spaces with not much regard for the materials from which they were made. Before the Second World War, Le Corbusier was at least partly a member of this group (his later conversion to expressed poured concrete came after examination of the slave made structures of the Nazi Atlantic Wall).

At the same time Aalto, the Neo-Goth was exploring the placemaking potential of brick, bronze and wood in applications old and new (1).

Today the distinction continues. In its fine posthumous analysis of the nature of design, Michael Brawne declared that "when I am considering the design of a building, I need at the outset(...) to be concerned with the selection of materials(...) especially for those(...) which will have an influence on spacial organization and appearance(...) This is unlike, say, the choice of damp-proof course"...
Much everyday architecture (at least on the European continent) is created out of stucco on insulated blockwork walls. They could be made of anything, anywhere and the only means of giving them emphatic or tectonic qualities is by carefully introducing reassuring elements in the parts you can touch. Much high profile architecture is made by stars who often seem to be indifferent to what their work is made of, as long as it looks arresting on the pages of glossy magazines."

Encarando a arquitectura como uma abstração geométrica, os "arquitectos euclidianos" como lhes chamou Richard Neutra, deixam os materiais ao critério dos construtores, ou entram com eles só porque interferem na aparência das formas, sobretudo na sua aparência visual.
Ora como observa mais adiante o autor do artigo transcrito, "One of the reasons that the nature of materials affects us all is because they evoke atavistic memories through senses other than vision: touch, smell, and even taste(...)". Vamos mais longe dizendo que os materiais contribuem decisivamente para a qualidade térmica, acústica, multisensorial, do ambiente interior dos edifícios onde, cada vez mais, vivemos o nosso dia a dia.
São pois, não só razões de ordem prática, construtiva e utilitária, mas também qualidades de ordem sensível que ficam arredadas do desenho de arquitectura que marginaliza a materialização das formas, a definição dos materiais de construção, ou se limita aos acabamentos, olhando apenas ao seu desempenho visual e táctil.

"Over the last century building materials have become increasingly stiff in relationship to weight(...) Thinner and lighter(...) components in which what you can see and touch is a thin skin of back-up substances(...)"
Pois é! Por este andar o arquitecto irá deixando que os edificios se desmaterializem e sejam cada vez mais dependentes das máquinas para serem ao menos habitáveis.


As actuais preocupações ambientais que decorrem em grande parte do abuso das máquinas, vêm obrigar a uma definição mais criteriosa e atempada dos acabamentos, bem como dos materiais escondidos que asseguram a qualidade da construção e interferem também na nossa saúde e no nosso bem estar.

(1) JUhani Pallasmaa em The Thinking Hand tece os seguintes comentários que traduzo livremente, sobre a Casa Experimental de Muuratsalo, vista do pátio na imagem junta:
Uma experiência a nível conceptual e filosófico, bem como na aplicação dos materiais e nos detalhes, é uma casa de verão construida em tijolo na paisagem lacustre finlandesa. Numa região em que prevalece a madeira patente na tipologia construtiva, ela reflete (não obstante) o imaginário de uma casa de pátio mediterrânea.
O projecto também contem diversas experiências sobre a aplicação do tijolo e de telhas cerâmicas, fundações assentes na rocha natural... aquecimento solar(?), e sobre os "efeitos estéticos ou a resistência de plantas decorativas e musgos".