Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

Ana Catarina Silva

Your public space for thinking architecture is now going ABROAD. every 1st and 3rd saturday (2x a month) Each episode on a different place but always on Spotify…and instagram and on the website arquiteturaentrevistas.com

  1. #50 AMUNT (DE), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    FEB 7

    #50 AMUNT (DE), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    This week, we travel to Aachen and Stuttgart to meet AMUNT, founded in 2009 by Björn Martenson, Sonja Nageland Jan Theissen. AMUNT reinvent the existing. They pay attention to the quirky, the overlooked, the oddly specific. “There are ideas in these quirky things, that’s why we collect them.” But collecting is only the beginning. For AMUNT, these observations become operative: “to transfer means the possibility to bring something new to the vocabulary of architecture”. I agree. Each project begins with context - not as something given, but as something constructed. “Everybody can create their own context… you design what you think is your context.” This openness also allows for letting go: “at some point, it becomes the client’s project on the inside, and we let go”. Wise. Constraints play a central role. “We like to take benefits out of constraints… these constraints form a kind of character”. Within limits, they find freedom. “It helps you to find, in the sea of possibilities, a solution that is not just based on taste (…) If we have at least 2 reasons for something, then it’s really good”. In the end, everything has a character: imperfect, specific, quietly alive…waiting to be found. Guests: Björn Martenson + Sonja Nagel + Jan Theissen (Aachen + Stuttgart, Germany)Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal) Upload your references to: arquiteturaentrevistas.comSpotify: Arquitetura Entre VistasInstagram: @arquiteturaentrevistas #ArquiteturaEntreVistasABROAD #ArquiteturaEntreVistas #AMUNT #ArchitecturePodcast #ContemporaryArchitecture #GermanArchitecture #DesignProcess #ArchitecturalThinking #ReinventingTheExisting #ArchitecturalContext #ArchitectureLovers

    46 min
  2. #49 Christ & Gantenbein (CH), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    12/13/2025

    #49 Christ & Gantenbein (CH), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    Today, we travel to Zurich to meet Emanuel Christ, who, together with Christoph Gantenbein, founded Christ & Gantenbein in 1998. With them, I learned that “form is communication”. As Aristotle would say it as a syllogism: “Form is language. Language is communication. Therefore, form is communication.” But can we truly communicate if we invent our own language? Or if we aim for anonymity in the forms we use? For Emanuel Christ, a good building speaks, “a good building speaks with other buildings; a good building speaks about other buildings.” Architecture, he argues, is a civic art, “it belongs to everybody. So please speak a language that can be understood by the majority of people, and at the same time, make it surprising, make it fresh, make it original.” “Form is never an isolated thing per se.” It is typological, compositional, tectonic - a synthesis of thought and construction. Each project contributes to the evolution of a type: “the best projects have a clear typological principle that produces exceptions and frictions.” For Christ, architecture is dialogue between past and present, the general and the specific, the universal and the local. Always familiar, yet always new. Guest: Emanuel Christ (Zurich, Switzerland) Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal) Upload your references to: arquiteturaentrevistas.com Instagram @arquiteturaentrevistas Follow for more thoughts on architecture.

    1h 10m
  3. #47 Enrico Sassi (CH), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    11/01/2025

    #47 Enrico Sassi (CH), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    Let’s travel to Lugano, Switzerland, to meet Enrico Sassi — architect, landscaper, teacher of Urban Design at USI in Mendrisio, and editor of “archi”, a Swiss magazine of architecture and urban planning. From his studio in Lugano, he navigates the blurred lines between inside and outside, architecture and landscape. “It’s not so important to make a distinction between inside and outside,” he says. What matters most is to “produce good living spaces.” For Sassi, “space is our specificity,” and materials are alive with possibilities: “each material has an expression… you can take out energy or beauty or interest from each material.” Nothing is ever wasted: “you don’t throw away a piece of stone. Keep. Keep because it is always useful.” His work unfolds like an archaeological reading, where “you show stratas” and let the story be read over time. Theory is important, but it cannot remain abstract: “if we don’t have something in our head we are not able to do something with our hands. But only theory… it’s theory.” Construction itself is part of the story, and “you need to be ready to change your mind during the process because the story is moving and new things appear.”  Maybe it’s an opportunity, it is not a problem. Even bridges, pavilions, and infrastructures carry care and emotion: “color is adding joy to a piece,” he says, recalling a bridge touched by blue and yellow. “We don’t expect a bridge to transmit happiness.” But maybe we should. Guest: Enrico Sassi (Lugano, Switzerland) Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal) Upload your references to: arquiteturaentrevistas.com Instagram @arquiteturaentrevistas Follow for more thoughts on architecture.

    44 min
  4. #44 AMAA (IT), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    07/19/2025

    #44 AMAA (IT), Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

    Let’s travel to Venice and Arzignano to meet Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampasso, founding partners of AMAA, a “Collaborative Architecture Office For Research and Development” as they call it. They have recently stated working form New York, as they thought that would be a good pretext to be closer to Donald Judd’s aura. “Instagram fully fills our mind, so it’s not easy to select”. Therefore, they’ve developed their own toolbox, the "AMAA box” - which they progressively disclosure on throughout the episode. “To have a proper selection is important, so we do our selection of a lot of things”. At the end, “all these influences create a language.” There are 3 main pieces: a site, an architect and a client.  “All these 3 things need to work together”. “To be trustable with a client you need to be a storyteller, thats the first thing. But you also need to be humble and practical. (…) The client needs to be with us for the research, for the process, for the after”. The process is good, but the after is the best part, they claim. Let’s not for get about the site, as that is the place where they best express their way of thinking. “We really love to dirty up the situation”. On one hand, “we need to be thinkers but at the same time we need to be builders”. On the other hand, “from a functional problem you can find a way to be also aesthetic”. What goes around comes back around. “The reference is giving to you the power of detail, the power of keeping up your way of thinking and your intuition.” Guest: Marcello Galiotto + Alessandra Rampazzo  (Venice + Arzignano, Italy) Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal) Upload your references to: arquiteturaentrevistas.com Instagram @arquiteturaentrevistas Follow for more thoughts on architecture.

    56 min

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Your public space for thinking architecture is now going ABROAD. every 1st and 3rd saturday (2x a month) Each episode on a different place but always on Spotify…and instagram and on the website arquiteturaentrevistas.com

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