One of the primary roles to be played by the experimental activists in architecture is not to come up with new ideas of what architecture should be, but to come up with new ways to talk about it – new media. In that sense it’s absolutely crucial that we foster new techniques of communication – with all of the incredible care and precision that we use to foster new forms of design. We need equal care and equal attention to incubate new forms of communication. (…)

But two things: almost nobody – I mean, very few people – are doing things with theory, with words, with books, with buildings, that are shockingly demanding us to change our mind. Very few. But you get the feeling that there’s a generation cooking. A generation that can overcome, let’s say, some of the resistance. And what you said earlier I think is right to the point: can we generate new communication systems that will allow this network of emerging thinkers to redefine the landscape and empower themselves? Because, of course, all the traditional magazines, all the traditional schools – everything – is set up to reinforce a certain slow evolution of the field. Architecture is obsessed with being slow. We can make the most exciting thing dull. We have that expertise. Our social role has been that: to be slow, to be stable, to be a reference point for change. It’s, in a sense, how we have been so clearly the enemies of turbulence – and the question is: how do you foster turbulence? It’s the question for every teacher: how do you foster turbulence without freezing it? Without stopping it?

O excelente BLDGBLOG apresenta uma extensa entrevista a Mark Wigley.  Fala-se da necessidade de criar novas plataformas de comunicação da arquitectura, permitir a contaminação de uma certa turbulência e abrir espaço à diversidade, à experiência e a novas teorizações que rompam com a fabricação académica de operadores convencionais de projectar.

Na contradição dos mercados de construção massiva, como nos fenómenos económicos da China ou do Dubai, Wigley reflecte sobre a paradoxo presente entre um building boom e um real défice de arquitectura. Aponta o potencial da arquitectura como modo de proceder a uma engenharia de coesão transdisciplinar, como plataforma para suportes de pesquisa que inscrevam abordagens inovadoras aos problemas da sustentabilidade na sociedade global.

Mark Wigley estará presente na Conferência Internacional da Trienal de Arquitectura de Lisboa integrando um painel dedicado ao tema Realidade e Cenografia, do qual farão também parte Eduardo Souto de Moura, Thom Mayne e Jamie Fobert.