Internet Resources for Architecture and Urban Design in the Caribbean
Ÿ
Periferia: Publications: AAA: Editorial.
Archivos de Arquitectura Antillana
Archivos de Arquitectura Antillana
AAA
Archivos de Arquitectura Antillana
Volume 1, Number 1. May 1996
Editorial by
Gustavo Luis More
Just as every desired birth, Caribbean Architectural Records comes
loaded with great expectations.
For many years I have maintained frequent conversations with very
dear friends in the Great Caribbean region, around the necessity to
shape a periodical editorial project which would provide the
opportunity to re-acquaint us and present our reality -so poorly
diseminated- to the international comunity.
We are talking about trascending barriers in each country and
solidifying the internal roads in this kind of circuit defined by
geography and by history. We are dreaming about reafirming through
architecture, a contemporary idea of region: 3To architecturize2 a
regional identity, critically, amongst ourselves.
Today we have this first opportunity to make real our plan. I
cannot but feel obligated to grasp all this hope with a great embrace,
and with the confidence that we will be able to guarantee the
direction of this vessel of the future. This magazine will answer the
following orientation:
- To stimulate reflexion around our region, confronting
diversities and unifying similarities.
- To support the interchange and mutual knowledge of our shared
reality, which is, paradoxically, superficial and fragmented.
- To work some more with the ambigous theme of identity: The
presence of the Wider Caribbean in Latin America, in North America,
and in the World.
- To balance scholar information/data (essays, research,
historical, aesthetical, philosophical, technical and other articles)
with the introduction of contemporary proyects in the architectural
field as well as urban design, historic preservation and interior
architecture.
- To favor the promotion of material originating in this area, or
with a theme related to it; not excluding news items and contributions
with an international scope.
- To publish writing of the best possible quality. To raise the
level of the magazine with the contributions from Latin American,
Northamerican, European and others who could delineate a perspective
in agreement with the particular interests in the region.
Besides offering a platform of support in the propagation of the
current work by proffesionals in this area, I consider it is
indispensable to reproduce some valuable articles, previously
published. Such is the case with research of very limited edition
written by masters such as Erwin Walter Palm, Mario j. Buschiazzo,
Carlos Arbel·ez, Emilio Hart-TerrÈ, JoaquÌn Weiss, David Buisseret,
Manuel Toussaint, C. F. Temminck-Groll, etc.
Several previous steps have established a communication network
which is narrowing each day: The plan CARIMOS/OAS-UNPHU for Monuments
and Sites of the Great Caribbean; the Bienal de Santo Domingo and the
Bienal del Caribe intiated by the Grupo Nueva Arquitectura in the
Dominican Republic, the Architecture and Urban Design Seminars on the
West Indies, the Congresses of ICOMOS, organized by chapters in Mexico
and in the Dominican Republic; the awards from AIA and from CAPR in
San Juan, Puerto Rico; the curriculum courses in the Preservation
Institute: Caribbean, at the University of Florida in Gainesville and
in Antigua, Guatemala; there are multiple attempts created to link
proffesional interests. If we add to these efforts, the regionnal
participation in the Seminarios de Arquitectura Latinoamericana and in
the other internationals events of this nature, we will confirm the
existence of a continous and enriching exercise in continental
exchange.
Nevertheless, we need to break the language barriers and to
interlock ever so stronger the many facets defined by political
history: hispanic, french, english, danish, dutch, african and asian
traits have evolved into isolation, rather than unification of virtual
reality borders. Yet, culture does not aknowledge other limits than
those imposed by daily reality. It blends us all in rythms, in
ambiences, in dialects and in the singular flavors of this
mediterranean space spreading on those terms, beyond the Archipelago,
from the Atlantic flatlands in Florida up to the Guyanas. Not by
islands alone man survives.
This is why we mention this stimulating paragraph by Plato as title to this introduction. To overcome distance is our engagement. To create our own space is our task.
