Making an entrance

摘要

'We are living in especially difficult times', Diego Portas of Rio-based practice C+P asserts.'The ghost of the last dictatorship is repeatedly named.' A familiar pall hangs in the air at the mention of political prospects for this generation of architects. Economic and political crisis has caused a regression of policies instated during redemocratisation, intended to mitigate the radical inequalities that beset the region - this has now evolved into what Pedro Varella of Gru.a calls a 'hunt of the cultural', referring to the targeted defunding of cultural institutions. The sparse state projects that do exist are chosen through bid proposals: a threat to civic, social and aesthetic virtues is posed on the one hand, as values of expediency and economy are held supreme; on the other, the drought mandates a proliferation of practical tactics, means of survival in a hostile environment.