On copies and ghosts. Recherche sur l’origine

Being introduced in a museum and converted in a work of art, the house has been stripped of both its architectural essence as all that, before being transferred to the domain of art, tenuously linked it to the fuzzy world of architecture: its utilitas, its function. With this gesture consisting of reproduction and its subsequent translation into a new context -both physical and temporal-, Martí Anson forces us to ask ourselves, as viewers, precisely on this paradox.

But the act also reveals the limits under which operates the tradition and also exposes the underlying gears as a form of mimetic production. No copy without a model. And precisely in this retrospective search of the origins we glimpse a first architecture, a spectral shelter, a tree. Objects of nature, later reinterpreted in the light of technic, protect us from the untimely and on them we have founded the original myth of architecture understood as artifice, as an irreversible split of nature.

The paradoxical essence of that house, now a ghost, challenges us: are there actions, rituals that can subvert the process and return the piece to its original level? Is it possible to restore the original condition to return, briefly, to the domain of architecture?

MAIO is a group of architects working on concepts such as system/variation or ephemeral/ad hoc, from theoretical and critical positions. Founded in 2005, it currently comprises Maria Charneco, Alfredo Lérida, Guillermo López and Anna Puigjaner, architects located in Barcelona who combine their professional activity with interventions, research and editorial tasks.