"Criticism must provoke a context where thought and dialogue help to generate the explanation of things."
Fredy Massad gave a session at School of Architecture in which he spoke about his understanding of architecture and criticism.
Under the degree scroll "Icons and legends. La construcción de un mito", Fredy Massad, architect, critic, blogger-"La viga en el ojo" of ABC, argued that the mission statement of criticism should be to put things in crisis, not to give solutions. According to the author of the book,"La viga en el ojo. Writings in Time", "criticism has been transformed, we live in the culture of the image, in a society where the construction of the myth is more important than reality itself". "Architecture has become a consumer product, a "pink" press, where some "star architects" have appeared, who, by being elevated by critics, have managed to take power away from Architecture in capital letters." According to Massad,"the critic has become a creator of stars, a prescriber, who decides and raises", and "architecture, with that arrogance, leaves no room for criticism, for discussion. Our time is marked by the star architectures, which make that there is a degree program in much of the profession to enter the Olympus of those singled out by the critics".
According to the architect and critic,"architecture thought from the digital, in parallel to the world, lacks sense, and often obeys whims, morphological issues, which require large investments. Architecture is much more than a world of opulence, of games, of slogans, of fashions." "There are no longer ideas, there are faces, there are icons, architecture is not as important as building a story, telling a story, a vital story, typical of the tabloids. Moreover, sometimes there is a significant gap between the image that some architects want to project, and their real work".
"The result of all this is a paraarchitecture, the simulation of something that is outside architecture, where everything is devirtualized. A clear sign of this change is the moment when architecture magazines stop showing architects' works on their covers and start showing their faces as brand icons."
"The criticism that I defend and vindicate is that which provokes a context where thought and dialogue help to generate the explanation of things. Criticism must intervene in the project; not when it is already finished, but it must be part of the process".