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Iñaki Ábalos and Renata Sentkiewicz on Dualism in Architecture

"Event Description" by Iñaki Ábalos and Renata Sentkiewicz, curators of the exhibition “Dualisms,” at Piper Auditorium, Cambridge, MA (February 5, 2015).

Much historic architecture takes its compositive tension from two theoretically incompatible morphological organizations that correspond to different universes or languages. This technique leads to a certain kind of monster or hybrid characterized by dualism. One of the basic monster assembly techniques involves the union of two organizations with one degree of compatibility and another obvious degree of incompatibility. Unions between different forms and materials can be carried out physically or by processes of chemical fusion. “Dualisms” may refer to limited scopes or can expand and infect all the scenarios affected by architecture, starting with its disciplinary definition, which is challenged by the view that the struggle between two disciplines is intrinsic to the project, or by incorporating a material, formal and geometric contradiction. Likewise, space can be conceived by introducing tension between the lower and the upper parts, or between interior and exterior, or by means of intrusions of varying depths and differing configurations.