by Jose Maria De La Cuadra, Director at Jose Maria De La Cuadra Architects

One of the principles of architecture is to create a  space – following your intuition – in order to translate an image and a feeling into something that will have an impact on society and will be able to cohabit in harmony with its surroundings.

This is why the holistic theory believes that the sum of the parts is more important than the individual parts. Therefore if we take into consideration this principle when observing The Cube of Venice the first thing that comes to my mind is the idea of an egoistic person without soul.

This kind of projects has the mission and the potential of bringing into life through its shapes, colors and textures feelings of inspiration, trust, love and comfort to people as well as an extra value to the city.

Instead this building evoques opposites feelings like controversy, dislike and discomfort. For this reason so many people have stood up.

This building does not respect the place, the neighborhood or Venice. Intellectually it does not match with the architectural style that it is supposed to represent which in this case would be minimalism.
Minimalism gives importance to details and these details should give value to the principle of “less is more” rather than to a cheap opportunity to express an effortless concept to an insensitive artist.

It’s easy to copy.
Perfectly straight and clean lines: these kind simplicity without ornament used to be a nice futuristic concept which unfortunately today translates into buildings with no identity, no soul, no intellectual exercise behind.

Sometimes contrasts in architecture and landscape are positive values for a city but only when contrast means adding value and not taking away from the city.

Contrast should be deeply studied throughout every single small detail. A genius master piece rather than an artist copy should have been there. To match the high-end circumstances.
Someone once said that “architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space“.
Therefore I believe we need something different. Todays society is evevolving in a different way. We understand the value of all things natural in our life,  organic food,  natural medicine, natural landscapes and aesthetics. We understand the imperfection and the irregularity of these organic lines and we make them part of our life accepting our imperfections too.
This should inspire us to design in a similar way. The nature of materials, their texture and, as the time goes by , we appreciate even more how they change. The volumetry,  the depth,  the environment and the existing architecture,  give us directions to design using and introducing contemporary lines and techniques.

These directions are meant to improve our design and aesthetics skills while understanding at the same time that the art piece is as important as the nature it is surrounded by.

At the end “wabi-sabi“.