In Conversation with Fernanda Canales

Courtesy of Fernanda Canales

Ed Burian: There’s a lot of talk today in architectural theory, criticism, and practice regarding architecture responding in some way to the complexity of contemporary life. For example, the rise of parametric design based on generating form from mathematical equations and making very complex surfaces, or and even discourses like complexity theory from the biological sciences, have been discussed as a response to the complexity contemporary conditions. That being said, some scholars and architects have begun to think about the idea of simplicity in the contemporary architectural discourse.

In this context, the 8.0 issue of PLAT focused on the idea of simplicity in architecture and took on the challenge of considering simplicity as a "navigational device" for complexity. What are your thoughts about the idea of simplicity in terms of integrating complex constraints and opportunities in design?

Fernanda Canales: For me, simplicity is a way of responding to many different issues at one time with a single strategy, in an attempt to avoid contradictions and misinterpretations. It is the clearest and most direct way of tackling difficulties—different interests of the client, on the one hand; the construction agendas of builders, the difficulties of the site, economic issues—all of these different matters. They are often contradictory. So, simplicity is the clearest and most direct way of tackling all those difficulties: Finding a simple solution that allows little opportunity for errors during construction, or a simple spatial strategy to avoid errors. Rather than an intellectual exercise, it is a practical matter. It deals with communication, how to be really direct, instead of producing hundreds of drawings and plans that are going to be interpreted, or have to be understood, by people who sometimes don't even know how to read. It has become a way of responding to a direct way of working, due to all those incongruities, and difficulties, and the everyday act of the built work—especially in a place like Mexico.

ESTEFANIA BARAJAS: But given what you are saying, are there formal considerations behind creating simplicity in your work? For example, is it coding a rational system? Is it based on a social ethic, revealing the hand of the worker…or is it mainly for the experience of the user?

I think it has nothing to do with formal considerations. It has more to do with how to communicate without builders making errors or trying to avoid mistakes, trying to avoid unhelpful or expensive matters. I wouldn't say it's explicitly ethical, but it is an attempt to spend less money, less time, with fewer errors. It is a very practical solution.

At the beginning of my career, I was always fighting against the realities of the everyday— you know—fighting against people who didn't understand a drawing or a plan, fighting against construction contractors that didn't have a clearly articulated structural system or operate as I was taught in school. So, instead of fighting frustration every day, I think this was a way to bypass all those issues and just address the very basic elements that can be understood by anyone, even in difficult circumstances. It has to do more with economy, and with simplifying communication and avoiding mistakes. It has become a way of producing; and instead of fighting against those issues, accepting them as a reality. It is a means of finding the most direct way of communicating and building, without fighting against economic and social education issues.

Ed Burian: When I've walked onto a construction site with you, and looked at your projects, we would talk about the people who were doing rough construction—working, digging foundations, doing rough concrete frames and things like that. And then we talked about the people who were skilled craftsmen who do finish work. Usually one group of workers would come on, and then another group, then they would leave, and then another group would come on… How does this idea of simplicity facilitate communication across these established hierarchies?

The most skilled, older workers are called "maestros.” Then you have "maestro de obra,” [foreman] then you have the "albaniles," [masons and skilled workers] who are also highly respected. And then you have the really young ones and the new ones, who are doing the preliminary work and the harder jobs. They're carrying the heavy stuff, but they have no experience or skills. And then we also have special family traditions of craft and knowledge, passed from father to son, of working with the hands in a specific material. They are the ones who are really skilled with stone; they are the ones who are really skilled as carpenters, working with wood. And they only do that. I mean, we wouldn’t have a skilled carpenter doing work with stone or with concrete. These specialists exist within their own experience or family traditions, but we are losing that more and more.

We're having to use more unskilled labor, and people who have no education or real training in the field. And generally, there is no way of knowing in advance when we will be working with a high level of skill or craft, because it depends on the construction company or on the client. We have to deal with those things.

Courtesy of Fernanda Canales

I always try to have my projects have certain aspects related to the traditions of craftsmanship and the knowledge of certain materials, knowing that, if you ask for the correct solution—like brick lattice work, or wood, or stone—you can always find someone who knows how to do that. And you can learn a lot from them; many projects are based on the improvised solutions the local workers provide.

Then the rest of the project is conceived in very basic and simple materials and requires no knowledge at all. We are always trying to look at how to blend these two qualities. That is why I think the word simplicity works for the solution at large. But then, within that solution, I am always thinking about the great construction traditions in Mexico that should be considered and should be kept. So that is why my projects attempt to honor the highly skilled tradition of working with the hand. This honors our history.

Estefania Barajas: That being said, is designing and building a large, private project in Mexico for a private developer simpler than designing a building for a private residence? How does the political culture in Mexico affect the design process, for the public or in a public project?

I don't think there's a difference between working on large private projects, or a private residence, or building public projects; because they all end up being built by basically the same hands. It has been the same experience for public commissions as working with the government, or with a client who wants a private residence. Every project ends up being built basically by the same workers. The process is different regarding the timing or the budget, but at the end, the people who are on the site every day are the same. The scale of the project doesn't matter. I think my work has become stronger in its aspirations and its intentions, and simpler with details and minor requirements. This is because I know they're not going to happen regardless of budget, regardless of the program, regardless of whether it’s private or public.

Ed Burian: The last time I met you in Mexico City, you were working on a library project. I remember there were many challenges in putting that project together for all kinds of reasons. I wonder if you could talk a bit about the challenges of working with the government in Mexico at either the municipal, state, or federal level. Does that affect the design process or the way you think about the project?

With public commissions in Mexico, architects usually have less control over the project because there are so many agencies, bureaucracies, and processes that are not the same as working directly with a client for a house—so there are many layers of interests. For that project specifically, the Centro Cultural Elena Garro en Coyoacán in Mexico City, it was a competition sponsored by the Minister of Culture—but it was also in a historical site in Coyoacán, so there was a commitment regarding the historical site and the protected building. There were many interests and institutions involved. And it had also to do with the federal government because it was a project that had to be inaugurated by the President.

It was an important project for the city, for the Minister of Culture who would have dealt with federal government and with the local municipality, the Delegación en Coyoacán, the INBA, which is Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes for protected buildings, and the INAH, which is the historical institution. It had many filters, and obviously public commissions widen the gap between client and architect, or between the builder and the final user, because there are so many different layers of people involved. In that case, it was a challenge. That happened also with a recent housing project I built for INFONAVIT, which is a housing ministry, and the Instituto Naciónal de la Vivienda.

Ed Burian: Where was that project?

This was social housing, economic prototypes for INFONAVIT. I also worked for housing after the earthquake in Ocuilan, which is in the Estado de Mexico. So, there are those projects where there is not direct communication between the client, the final user, and the architect, nor with the construction company, or the workers who are to build the project. Also, with the Salas de Lectura [reading room] projects that I built for INFONAVIT, there was the same challenge. This was a public commission where there was to be no direct supervision on my part; I was just to design a prototype that was going to be replicated in each state in Mexico.

So how do you control a project that is built thirty-two times in different climates, weather, and geographical conditions? How do you protect the project in the hands of somebody that you don't know, you haven't met, that you will never go to the site, and will never visit?

Sala de Lectura [Reading Room]

Photo: Jaime Navarro

Those challenges have been the reason to design very simple solutions, that can be built by whomever, with materials available in any hardware store in any region. The Salas de Lectura were a simple rooftop with four elements, there was no glass that could be broken or vandalized. All these projects have very little future maintenance, or no maintenance at all. In a sense, it is not just about the building process, it is about the future of the building. You won't have any guarantee of how the building is maintained; the President changes, or the Minister of Culture changes, or whatever—there may not be any budget for future maintenance of the building, so you have to take everything into account from the beginning.

Ed Burian: Is simplicity a response to contemporary life? Especially in Mexico City, a metropolis of nearly 23 million people with the challenges of traffic jams, and noise, and pollution, and overcrowding… Do you think simplicity and tranquility are related in this kind of urban context?

I first started working in Monterrey, NL, which as you know is much smaller and more efficient in many different ways. I was used to being able to visit my sites in Monterrey and I could go twice in a day.

In Mexico City we probably visit once a week, twice a week at the most, and sometimes even less. It completely changed my relationship to the work. In rural areas, which are even less feasible to visit, we probably go once a month.

If you are not going to be dealing directly with the issues that arise every day during construction, or with the questions of people working with the architectural drawings that they cannot read or understand, it is a completely different approach. In that sense, my work has become progressively more direct or simpler, in order to avoid having a bad day of conflicts every time we visit the site. We cannot correct mistakes after they're built because, obviously, it is economically impossible.

Terrain House in El Piñón Reserve

Courtesy of Fernanda Canales

How do you prevent mistakes from happening? You really have to understand that the relevance of the project is not in its details. It is not in a well-crafted or precise interpretation, but it's in the broader understanding of the main priorities. And you have to think about one or two issues that must be tackled regardless of the budget. Buildings always have to end up costing less than the budget allocated at the beginning of the project. They have to be finished in less time that you were told at the beginning. You have to cut, and cut, and cut… We know they are going to be reduced in time, and cost, and labor, and control… So that's the only response, thinking of those issues.

Estefania Barajas: Are you working from an initial image when you're working on these projects? You’ve talked about arriving at practical solutions, but do you begin with an image, or is the end product a result of that practicality that you have to make happen?

Actually, I never have an image, not even until the very end, because I know it can change. As I was saying, budgets always change. I used to base my projects on an ideal image of a material and that was really important—but then for the fifth time, or the tenth time, the client decides to change the material or the facade. Thus, the last details are always left incomplete. If the project depends on that image, it will never happen. So now instead of depending on, or working toward that image, it's the least important part for me. What I’m working with is what I need for the project to do before it's even finished.

Casa Bruma, Valle de Bravo, Mexico

Photo: Rafael Gamo

I try to imagine it like a ruin, or a process half-done. It has to work, even if it is just half-built. By half-built, I mean built but not completely detailed. I try to imagine that the project, the end product, should also be the structure. So, if the end product never gets finished, you will be left with only the structure—and that is important, and that is the project. So, I never use recubrimientos, [cover-ups]. The structure becomes the final product, and that image is just about the very basic spaces, or priorities, that are the first things that are going to get built. So if I'm kicked out halfway through the process, or if the project is less than finished, or if there's no budget, or if they change construction companies three times during the process—all of these imprevistos which are for me, they're not… how do you call them?

Ed Burian: Improvisations?

Yes, improvisations for me are not unexpected things. They are the way we work, and we anticipate them, so I plan my projects to be left with half of a budget, in half of the time, done with half of the knowledge of the people who were supposed to be doing them. In a way that image, that final image never comes.

Ed Burian: This is even on the private houses you're doing? Or is it more with your public work?

It also happens on our private projects. Maybe I think the project should be done with stone, or whatever, and then the client decides the wife doesn't like that or he doesn't want it. Changes are common. There is no respect for authorship and project intentions at all, by anyone—at least in my experience.

Ed Burian: I remember once we were talking about that on a job site. You spoke about how the idea still has to be there—whether they change it from stone to brick, or exposed block, or something else.

Exactly, since I know changes are not a surprise anymore. If you know it is going to happen, instead of having the frustration of having your building change at the last minute, the building is always only the rough idea of the building. And so, I don't care if they want to change the material it's not even possible, because the structure of the house is that material from the beginning. In the brick work or the stone, it is not something you apply afterwards at the end. It is part of the structure. We reduce the risk of those changes, because we’re thinking of the project as a rough solution for what will happen.

Ed Burian: Let me ask you to expand on the role of construction and simplicity as a response to local conditions in terms of materials and labor. Especially in Mexico, is simplicity related to directness in construction?

There is a phrase I learned from the Minister of Culture when I was working on the Centro Cultural Elena Garro—"En México, lo temporal en México se vuelve permanente.” [In Mexico, the temporary becomes permanent.]

Ed Burian: Wow… that's a very useful insight and a beautiful way of putting it.

In Mexico, we are always rushing against time. We are always running late. And it is very common to solve things in the moment, to improvise temporarily. It's like, "Oh, it's just for the opening,” or, “It's just because we’re waiting for the paycheck, but you have to finish it." So, we are always improvising, and always things end up lasting longer than you think. I mean the improvisation is not temporary. It's just a way we work, and it ends up being the final result.

We always work that way, working against the clock, and then things remain forever. Nobody is going to change something that is already done. In that sense, Las Salas de Lectura and many of the other projects I mentioned take that into account. You may have to produce a housing project very quickly for the victims of an earthquake, and we can imagine it is just going to be a temporary solution, but it's not. It is going to be their house for fifteen or thirty years, or for a lifetime. We already know that everything that seems to be ephemeral, or temporary—these things are going to last longer than we can imagine. So, I try now to work thinking of that permanence along with improvisation, and that is the result of my work.

Estefania Barajas: Speaking of simplicity, when we think of artists like Donald Judd, we believe that he goes to extraordinary lengths to hide connection details—and we’ve talked about how you're not worried about those details. How do you make your construction process as integral and simple as part of the architecture?

Exactly. I think it has to do with knowing that the budget will never be as expected. How to build a project when you are left with only half the money, or when you understand that you are probably going to be kicked out of the process, and they won't need an architect to finish your project…and that is occurring every single day. We have to think of this as a reality… that it’s going to happen. So how can I protect my design if I'm no longer there, or if there's no money to finish it? That's why, for example, with Casa Bruma, the house done with black concrete, the structural solution ends up being the final house. There is no cladding, there's nothing that comes afterwards. The structure becomes the building, despite having no architects or money at the end of the project.

Casa Bruma, Valle de Bravo, Mexico

Courtesy of Fernanda Canales

Estefania Barajas: Do you think your design process would change if you were to build in the U.S.? Despite Mexico’s “temporality,” it offers a freedom and flexibility that the highly regulated construction culture of the U.S. lacks.

There have been attempts to participate in projects in the U.S at the moment. I'm starting projects in Jamaica and in Costa Rica, which are related more to cultural solutions that are closer to Mexico. But yes, regulations in the U.S., Japan, or in Europe would completely change my architecture.

When I worked twenty years ago for a couple of months in Toyo Ito's office in Tokyo, I had to face a completely different reality. Solutions were sometimes dictated, not by a design purpose, but by coding, or even insurance issues or regulations that we do not have in Mexico. So yes, it would be completely different. Part of the creative force of architecture in Mexico has to do with this liberty.

Félix Candela said the architecture he built was only possible in Mexico. And he ended up living in the U.S. at the end of his life, and he would always praise the freedom he had in Mexico as an architect to experiment. All those structures he built in Mexico weren't calculated precisely beforehand. I mean, he obviously did those calculations, but he really experienced those design principles during the construction process. The concrete shell of the Chapel Lomas de Palmira, in Cuernavaca, fell down, and the second time he built it he discovered the solution. The opportunity we have in Mexico, I think it is partly the result of the creativity or the inventiveness that is allowed because of those conditions. But also, we are dealing with unskilled labor and inadequate budgets. Building in Japan takes years, and in Mexico we need to open it in six months. Thus, we have the good part of this situation, and then also we have the terrible part… For example, the expansion of the CEDIM Campus in Monterrey, NL had to be completed in less than six months! It's crazy!

Ed Burian: The sitework and construction of an elaborate educational institution like that would likely be at least a year and a half in the United States.

Exactly. And so, we have this very appealing myth that we can work with fewer regulations and more freedom, but we also have to work with less time, less money and a less-skillful workforce.

Ed Burian: I was surprised to hear you say that, despite how well-known and widely-published your work is, someone coming to you as a private client would still be making the kinds of significant changes you describe in the middle of the project.

I would say even more so, because they are the ones who are paying, and it’s their house. It's their decision. In Mexico, despite having this architecture boom, we still don't have the respect for authorship—I mean, we even see it in the houses of Luis Barragán, and people are buying his houses, and they are destroying them. And then you say, why are you buying an Enrique del Moral house, or a Barragán house if you are going to destroy it? I would say this tendency is even stronger with private clients because it is their house. It's not the architect's house.

Elena Garro Cultural Center, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México

Courtesy of Fernanda Canales

Why would the architect decide instead of the wife? I mean, why would I have a stronger say than the lady who will live in and care for the house?

Ed Burian: I always think with my own clients that we're developing these ideas together, and that they're approving each phase. And maybe they don't really understand the drawings until the thing is built, and then they want to change it. Do you think clients see you as their architect as an order-taker instead of an author?

Yes, architects think in a very different way, how—and we think that our decisions are more knowledgeable, or superior to those who are going to inhabit the place. I mean, who has the better understanding—the specialist, or the person who's going to pay for it, live in it, and take care of it… suffer it or enjoy it? And I still don't have the answer for that. I think it has to do with a design team that is composed of specialists, but also with the intuitive knowledge of the person who is going to inhabit the space.

Sometimes things happen in a plan, in a drawing, but then comes the reality of the decisions made along the way... I have projects that change every time. My clients go to a party or to a dinner, and they visit somebody else's house, and they come up with a new idea for me every time. Since we have to deal with those situations. I've tried to have a “bulletproof” project in terms of the design.

Yes…as I said, you would be absolutely amazed how many things change during construction!

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Fernanda Canales founded her practice in 2002 committed to architecture, urban design and research, and her professional and scholarly work has been widely published internationally. She received her Bachelor degree with honors from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, her MA at the Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña, Barcelona, and holds a PhD degree in Architecture from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid. Her work was selected for the AR House Awards by The Architectural Review and also “The Record Houses” (2018) by Architectural Record. She received the Career Award and Best Young Architect in Mexico by the Colegio de Arquitectos de México (2012) and was awarded a fellowship by the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, (2012-2015). She received the Emerging Voices Award from The Architectural League of New York in 2018, as well as the ArchDaily Building of the Year, The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture Award, and the CEMEX Award. She is author of several books including, “Vivienda Colectiva en México, El derecho a la arquitectura” (Gustavo Gili, 2017), “Architecture in Mexico 1900-2010” (Arquine, 2013), and is co-author of “Arquitectos del Siglo XX en México” (Arquine, 2017, 2011). She has published numerous essays in periodicals including: El Croquis, Praxis, Arquitectura Viva, Domus, AD, Abitare and Arquine. Her work has also been exhibited in venues such as the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the Venice Biennale, the Rotterdam Biennale and in museums and galleries around the world. She has been a professor at the Universidad Iberoamericana and a visiting professor at the UNAM, UPC at Barcelona, and Yale.