Predetermined housing

2016

Installation: Coligües, wooden and directed light, 5×3,5 meters.

Predetermined housing is an installation that addresses the housing problem, from a general point of view to a specific matter, in this case, the project of Mapuche state housing made by Undurraga Devés Arquitectos. The project was created in the year 2011 in order to benefit 25 Mapuche families willing to be inserted in “modern” society without losing their “traditions and costums”. This housing project, propelled by the Ministerio de la Vivienda and the foundation “Un Techo para Chile” took a house of 61 square meters and 2 floors as the base for the construction of the model of a Mapuche-contemporary house. Combining the functional of a traditional space with a “ruka”, intervening the front of the building with windows decorated with “coligües”, native tree disposed there to simulate the shadow of the logs to the inside. The above-mentioned architectural procedure seems to be simply aesthetical and lacking any real functionality, not even being conscious of the construction of the Mapuche identity.

According to an interview to this architects’ firm: “the faint and fragmented light inside the houses evokes an atmosphere that sends us to the dim light of the “rukas”, allowing the ones inside to have their own time, different from the one that flows outside, in the city”. The work consists in an installation similar to the front of the Mapuche housing project, disposed in a vertical way, allowing going across the installation under the directed lights that perform strong shadows on the floor. Additionally, this project has a user’s guide, right next to the installation, where indications on how to proceed under this support, mocking the interaction that the project proposes.

Photos: Diego Argote