Few years had passed since the first invitation to lecture internationally,
At that moment, I experienced the need to understand and /or to find out “that” rational process to produce architecture.
After several intents to find some logic to my process as a professor and as an architect, the conclusion was to title “Living by Instinct” to that first lecture.
Facts as not being able to read in my childhood have had pushed me to compensate that disability with the development of other skills.
Sensibility, instinct and intuition dominated my process both in my architecture as well as in my teaching.
Teaching architecture as I see it is an act of “transmitting” not that of showing how to do things. Students go to the university with the aim of becoming architects; of finding out if they have got what it takes. What is the first thing we should teach them?
First of all, we must explain that the person standing in front of them is only someone with more experience in the field, someone that will appreciate questions for which he or she have or not have an answer, someone who will transmit his/her inner self with not limitations.
In my case I have learned few statements that help me transmit:
First, the understanding that nature is divine creation therefore it is perfect.
The direct consequence to this statement is that any kind of intervention in nature becomes an attempt to transform perfection.
Second, the understanding that the tool that mankind has to transform nature is “design”.
Etymologically design is defined as the corollary of two words: divine and sign, therefore one could define design as “the act of making divine decisions”.
Third, the understanding that nature and design have been together since mankind creation, therefore the world was, is and will be designer’s responsibility.
Fourth, the understanding that architects great responsibility is that of transforming nature, this means transforming perfection with and to perfection. In other words,
the understanding of architecture as the nature of nature.
These four statements have become the fundaments to consider each time I have to either propose new architecture or understand existing architecture.
It is fundamental to listen to the environment and to establish a relationship with it, this relationship will be similar to any other type of relationships that humans have, and it can be direct, sophisticated, romantic, respectful, sane or insane.
In my case it is very direct, meaning intuitive and sensitive with not major analysis and/or rationality. Therefore when I teach, I tend to transmit and establish a relationship with the students similar to the relationship I have already established with the environment, then it is easy to appreciate communication between professors students and the surroundings.
Luis Longhi, MArch, MFA
Architect
