VICEVERSA TEAM

The first recordings of the word “masterpiece” date back to the guild system of the late 16th century. Originally, the term was used to indicate a piece of work that an apprentice had to produce in order to become a master craftsman. The work would be judged by a commission and, in case of a positive evaluation, the author would be entitled to a guild membership . Today, the word has acquired a quite different and loose meaning, being commonly used to indicate a work of outstanding quality: possibly (not necessarily) the greatest in the career of its author; widely praised by critics (earlier) and historian (later); and influential enough to generate its own lineage of works (for good or for bad).

As far as such concept is historically defined, and therefore subject to change, it is fair to question whether the word “masterpiece” indicates properties that are already inherent in a designated object, and therefore meant to be simply discovered. Or rather, if that of the masterpiece is a condition that is instead produced by means of the interaction of a particular network of actors, of which the work itself is only a node.

The case of the German Pavilion at the Barcelona International Exhibition of 1929, is quite exemplary in this sense. Although positioned in a visible location, during its six-months of existence the building went almost unnoticed by the specialized press, which seemed incapable of detecting its relevance . Dismantled in 1930, it is only from the 1950s that the pavilion became recognized as one of the most influential buildings of the 20th century, mainly thanks to the mediatic impact of a 1947 MoMA exhibition by Philip Johnson, which was entirely dedicated to Mies. In the critical text of the catalogue, whose cover shows what has now become the most iconic photograph of the Pavilion, Johnson describes the project as “the culminating achievement of Mies's European career”, “one of the milestones of modern architecture” and “truly one of the few manifestations of the contemporary spirit that justifies comparison with the great 5

architecture of the past” . And yet Johnson – who had already reviewed

the very same project, although with much less enthusiasm, in the catalogue of the International Style exhibition of 19326 – had never seen the Barcelona Pavilion in person: having missed the exhibition, he could only look at its black and white pictures and drawings, just like the majority of the critics who raised it to the status of masterpiece in the following years.

The story of the Barcelona Pavilion is relevant to us, since it makes emerge some of the factors that should be taken in consideration, every time the topic of the masterpiece is investigated. These include, among others: the agency of media and language, the tension between the built and the represented, the weight of authors and institutions, the change in perspective produced by historical distance, the comparison with the great works of the past, as well as their canonization. Still, it should be stressed how these factors too are historically defined, and therefore subject to change. The role currently played by exhibitions in the production of architectural knowledge, for example, is hardly comparable to that of the 1950s: not only due to the proliferation of this specific kind of media – every morning an architect wakes up and discovers a new Biennale – but also for the dramatic changes that are affecting architectural culture under the influence of digital communication technologies – describe an architecture in 280 characters.

Things get complicated further by the fact that the current multiplication of architectural traditions, design methods and languages (as predicted by Charles Jenks7 and defintively stated by Ignasi de Solá-Morales8) has somehow hindered the possibility of establishing clear values and hierarchies among a growing diversity of seemingly unrelated projects – what is more relevant: Herzog & de Meuron’s Elbphilarmonie, Alejandro Aravena’s Quinta Monroy, or Andrés Jaque’s COSMO? At the same time, the progressive extension of architectural practices toward disciplines and techniques that do not necessarily involve the design of buildings (which began somewhen around the 1960s) has struck a severe blow to the traditional notion of the architectural object, making it melt into thin air. On top of it, the by now well-established practice of extrapolating meaning from buildings that were never meant to be architecturally relevant, but that are nonetheless capable of expressing in a paradigmatic way a particular historical, cultural, social or political condition, has gradually weakened the narrative of the masterpiece as the main object of architectural scrutiny. And so, if anything goes, everything is architecture and we can learn from Las Vegas, it is questionable whether contemporary architecture needs to rely on masterpieces at all.

Nonetheless, it is hard to deny that our understanding of architecture is based on a solid sequence of masterpieces (mainly learned at school), which compose the personal traditions from which we observe, understand, criticize and then participate in architectural production. In this sense, it can be argued that one of the very foundations of architectural education has always been the construction and transmission of highly selected atlases of masterpieces: a function that was once shared with architecture magazines and books, but that has now been taken over by digital archives on Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook, which provide students and professionals with their own boards of forgotten architectures – but is it possible to forget after Google?

And yet, it is enough to do some online search to observe how the word “masterpiece” is being still used, although more often in non- specialized than in specialized platforms: mostly to praise the iconic works of mainstream architectural firms9, or to legitimize real estate operations10 without formulating any critical judgment on them. As if the concept had become another taboo within highly-refined-cultural- circles: something too obscene to use, if not to bring back to memory the unachievable works of our cherished masters of the past – contemporary masterpieces? Don’t make me laugh. Thus the word, from pointing to a category capable of disclosing a more articulate understanding of what architecture can be and do at its best, ends up turning into a tool for propaganda in the hands of constructors, politicians and PRs.

Still present in our language, it seems evident that the word “masterpiece” has changed its meaning and function with the passing of time. The question is, if the new meanings and functions it has acquired allow us to draw a map of the territories in which architecture moves today.

Where does the traditional meaning of the concept of masterpiece come from? What are the actors that collaborate in defining a masterpiece? How do politics, economy, technology and media influence the use of this concept, if they do? What does it mean to think at architecture outside of the notion of the masterpiece? Is the abandonment of such notion problematic or desirable? Once the history of early 21st century architecture will be written, what projects – if any – will be recognized as today’s masterpieces? What function does the concept of masterpiece perform in contemporary culture? How has the concept of masterpiece evolved in architecture and within other artistic fields? How is architectural education involved in the formulation of such concept?

These are some of the questions that Viceversa bits aims at answering with the (architectural) masterpiece project.