Los Seminarios Montevideo:	| english version
	espacios para la reflexión y la propuesta colectiva a través del proyecto
	Arq. Salvador Schelotto
	Los Seminarios Montevideo en una mirada retrospectiva	| english version
	Arq. Salvador Schelotto
	Inusual confluencia de aportaciones	| english version
	Arq. Mariano Arana
	Una reflexión desde el Comité Académico	| english version
	Arq. Hugo Gilmet
	Los seminarios Montevideo vistos por los invitados extranjeros	| english version

A Retrospective View on the Montevideo Seminars
Salvador Schelotto, Arch.

Starting in 1998, our School of Architecture has organized a unique event every month of March, the Montevideo Seminars, with the Urban Project Workshops discussed below.

This activity has had a deep impact on our School's life, remarkably contributing to a teaching renewal and to the academic debate, while reaching far beyond its boundaries.

The Seminars' most evident face has been the presence and participation of outstanding architects in the international arena, who have directed workshops, lectured, or integrated jury panels; we have also had the participation of city theorists, developers, researchers and exceptional academics coming both from our region and beyond, i.e., from Europe, Asia and North America. The proposals arising from the urban project Workshops have been their best known outcomes, i.e., small-scale models, panels, facilities, multimedia presentations and performances . The most commented episodes, discussions and debates, clashes and criticisms.

Moreover, there has been a sort of underground current that, albeit not too visible, has been certainly deep and should be highlighted.

A quick retrospective view suggests that somehow, the itinerary of the “Montevideo Seminars” has been an adjunct to the country's fate experienced these recent years.

Let us give a brief overview of this adventure.

On one hand, the initial situation in 1998 presented a novel setting, at least in the city of Montevideo: the inauguration of a general planning figure for the Municipality of Montevideo, such as the “Land Management Plan for Montevideo”- The specific application of this plan, in terms of what has classically been known as the Urban Project, dramatically changed the understandings at that time. This application - and in some cases, verification – implied a strong renovation, both at a conceptual level and in terms of the applicable instruments and techniques; this latter aspect also includes the significant development experienced in the field of information technology.

All this occurred in a country and a society that experienced a relative “fragile prosperity”, combining economic growth and increasing social inequities and obvious territory maladjustments. All this paved the way to imagine and design projects to respond to those issues, proposing some of the main strategies of the Montevideo Plan in more constrained and tangible terms, while making the most of the potential of some land pieces, infrastructure and equipment.

Later on, the breakdown of the neo-liberal model and the worsening of the ensuing social and economic crisis, resulted in a radical change of these visions, fostering a deeper reflection on the socioeconomic determinants of the urban and land processes and their incidence on the setup of the metropolitan realities, and the ever-conflicting relationships between city and land or between the formal and informal city.

Although the topics in this agenda did not respond either directly or mechanically to private interests, to the priorities and the needs of some of the institutions involved, the perspective allows us to notice that, overall, the concerns approached were consistent with the main questions that the players of the Uruguayan society were facing in that period.

Hence, at a certain level, the Seminars' –successful – experience may contribute to respond to the following question: is it possible to propose a player articulation modality that implies a “win-win” game? I.e., trying to tell to what extent one can contribute to face the difficult problem of the association of institutions, groups and people with diverse identities and interests, with the aim of interacting and building a common culture.

We believe this is possible, insofar as each edition, each Seminar, gathers a vast group of people who share an intense 15-day experience. This interacting group includes advanced university students, specialists and professionals from various and varied disciplines, national lecturers and researchers, outstanding foreign guests, technical and professional officials from several public divisions, responsible politicians, neighbours, related businesspeople and a whole range of stakeholders interested in the problems under discussion.

As a result, the activity has gone far beyond the classical Project Workshop focused on a given problem, to become a complex space for pro-positive reflection in terms of the city and its territory.

The topics in the urban and territorial agenda – mainly those related to the city of Montevideo and the Metropolitan area – have been present at each edition and were approached creatively, released from their commitments and constraints set by public management, giving birth to a highly productive forum for debate and exchange.

Year after year, the “institutional density” of the Seminar has gradually grown, incorporating partners such as the Municipality of Montevideo and the Municipal Council, followed by the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works, the Uruguayan Society of Architects and the Architecture Students Centre, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Housing, Land Management and Environment, finally including the School of Social Sciences School, in the final edition.

All that leads us to mention the challenges we have ahead of us in out near future.

Architects Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Mariano Arana at the Venice Biennial, 2000

From practice to theory.

We, architects, naturally handle the idea of a Project as a complex experience that articulates research and proposals, analysis and reformulation, going from the conceptual categories to the concrete requirements and their abstraction for their generalization.

That versatility was experienced at the seven Seminars conducted so far. This made it possible to create a unique mix of experience and theoretical reflection.

Let us see some examples.

Sao Paolo architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha, one of the two Brazilian exhibitors at the Venice 2000 Architecture Biennial, presented his Workshop's proposal for the Bay of Montevideo as part of a series of project explorations conducted in similar geographic situations.

At the closing panel of the III Seminar, Greek architect Yorgos Simeoforidis, a frequent participant of the Seminars until his death, proposed that the city of Montevideo could become the “capital of theme urbanism”.

The formulation suggested by Japanese architect Hiroshi Hara, on the “ discrete city ” notion, a conceptualization initially expressed through various concrete proposals, was finally extensively developed in an essay published in Tokyo in the late 2004 (Hara, Hiroshi: “Discrete City”, Tokyo ; Toto Shuppan, Dec. 2004).

Those examples express the possibility (already observed with the experience at the Seminars), of moving naturally from the Project practice, to theorization, from knowledge generated by the study of the specific problems, to an application knowledge that can be generalized, which is available and can be taken by those of us in the academy, as well as managers, professionals and the public in general.

Future Seminars - Some challenges to be approached in coming editions.

The sort of urbanism festival that is held in Montevideo every March presents experiences, methodologies, sensitivities, project and training modalities, in an enriching contrast, providing a forum for encounter and reflection with an unusual capacity to summon people.

The fraternity experienced those days has not always been free from tensions and the natural competitiveness arising from confronting the proposals and solutions imagined from very different ways of analysing and transforming reality from the also natural passion people feel when approaching the possible project responses.

The topics discussed throughout the seven editions have given rise to questions for urban analysis and research; the mesh of inter-institutional and interpersonal relationships that has been built across the seminars originate an extensive repertoire of problems to be considered in research projects, at outreach activities, at the courses held at the teaching architecture workshops (draft project and project), or even at the public administration itself, either at a municipal or national scale. New or old, problems can always be seen in the light of new approaches, or with fresh eyes.

The Seminar's challenges, from no won, will be how to preserve the tension, quality and academia interest reached previously, articulating them with the appropriate them selection and the determination of the settings to be focused.

In addition to that, an aspiration has been mentioned but never made true in its whole potential: the Seminars' incidence in the region, inviting and involving lecturers, students and experts from neighbouring countries to have an active role.

The year 2005 appears transcendental for the country, and it will certainly also be highly significant for our School of Architecture . In March we will take over the Presidency of the MERCOSUR Association of Public Universities Schools of Architecture (ARQUISUR), after our Association defined the installation of its Standing Technical Secretariat in Montevideo , in an attempt to consolidate this academic forum, extending its regional scope.

This occurs the same year we are celebrating the 90 years of the School of Architecture , a circumstance that will undoubtedly make us reflect on the paths we have followed almost throughout the whole XX century. We will then discuss our achievements and the difficulties and hurdles that slow down or hinder our progress in the XXI Century perspective. There are achievements and difficulties to be considered to calibrate our potentials, strengths and opportunities, which will acquire a special significance in 2005.

The year 2005 appears to be particularly challenging both for the University and for Uruguay , with the beginning of a new national government that should open new paths and provide an opportunity to formulate new ways. Everything occurs in a certain context of realities and expectations in which each player must consider and analyze their own realities and their own expectations

We are convinced that in that new context, the University, rather than claiming for more resources for itself, must place itself in the position of claiming for its appropriate place in national reconstruction, and the position it is required by ethics.

Architect Salvador Schelotto
Dean, School of Architecture