Manuela Jacard Plubins

Mrs. Jacard, before we begin with the inter­view, please intro­duce your­self in 3 – 4 sen­ten­ces briefly.
_[Manuela Jacard] [mj]: I think of mys­elf as an extro­ver­ted per­son, ready to take any crea­tive chal­lenge. Archi­tec­ture is an exten­sion of what I do; more or less archi­tec­ture is the rea­son (some­ti­mes the blame) why I’m inte­res­ted in what sur­rounds us; it’s the way I can under­stand and inter­act with other as well. Besi­des that I’m into music as well as clot­hing, per­for­ming arts, films, design, urba­nism, eco­logy, hand­made stuff, etc. J

Ques­tion 1: What was your first job after gra­dua­ting?
_mj: teaching at my col­lege *Archi­tec­tu­ral Rese­arch* in the last year, after that we made with the stu­dents a publi­ca­tion of the inves­ti­ga­tion. Later on i did some more teaching par­al­lel to a pri­vate resi­dence improvement.

Ques­tion 2: Why should cli­ents in any case work toge­ther with an archi­tect?
_mj: I believe archi­tects can trans­late a client’s desire into what they really need and can afford.

Ques­tion 3: How would you describe your archi­tec­tu­ral style?
_mj: clean lines, if pos­si­ble I try it to be sus­tainable and with a note of fun.

Ques­tion 4: Which book or film has impres­sed you in the last time?
_mj: a book cal­led Archi­tec­ture Ori­en­ted Other­wise of David Lea­ther­bar­row, which explains almost in a phi­lo­so­phi­cal way how the archi­tects work should be con­side­red and how nowa­days this is a rather voluble task.

Ques­tion 5: Who are your role models and why?
_mj: Nikola Tesla, for belie­ving in his work. Aphex Twin (Richard D. James), for his unbe­lievable rese­arch regar­ding elec­tro­nic music. Smi­lian Radic a Chi­lean archi­tect who works with orga­nic mate­ri­als with such pro­fi­ci­ency its stunning.

Ques­tion 6: Is the cli­ent king or should he be gui­ded to his luck by an archi­tect?
_mj: to his luck?..haha. I believe in team work, both sides should give the best of them­sel­ves. Somehow and some­ti­mes a cli­ent needs gui­dance just like the architect.

Ques­tion 7: Which sub­ject in course of stu­dies best pre­pa­red you for your pro­fes­sion?
_mj: Urban Plan­ning and Visual stu­dies, they give a wider vision on how to pre­sent and idea, which is always important.

Ques­tion 8: From Paul Valéry comes the term “archi­tec­ture is music made in stone.” What refe­rees to the ques­tion, what music you’re cur­rently happy to hear?
_mj: music is more like jazz fro­zen, I like to think of it as ice and not stone, because it enab­les to pos­si­bi­lity of shif­ting its shape and use in time.
Music is a great part­ner of an archi­tect, its always there to keep your mind calm and focu­sed, but I like to hear the most when working is clas­sic music and almost every artist at Warp Records.

Ques­tion 9: Which buil­ding would you like to design and why?
_mj: id love to design a place for artistic resis­den­cies, pro­duc­tion and expe­ri­men­ta­tion, a place where tech­no­logy and art can meet and work side by side.

Ques­tion 10: Archi­tec­ture is … ?
_mj: a way of life; a way to see things and under­stand them.

And finally, ques­tion 11: What ques­tion would you like to ask and whom?
_mj: what do you do for fun? +Zaha Hadid+ in archi­tec­ture she’s the busiest lady there is. :P

I am glad to have you as an non-german speaking archi­tect on my maga­zine. So I take the oppor­tu­nity to ask you a few more ques­ti­ons inte­res­ting for me and others. How to become an archi­tect in your coun­try?
_mj: you have to study 6 years and then wit­hin a year pre­pare your the­sis, then design an ent­ire pro­ject from scratch, inclu­ding the prior rese­ach, which after a for­mal pre­sen­ta­tion is voted by a col­lege jury.

In ger­many you have to be a mem­ber of the archi­tec­tu­ral cham­ber to call your­self an archi­tect. Is there any com­pa­ra­ble in your coun­try?
_mj: yes, it’s cal­led “Cole­gio de Arqui­tec­tos”: Archi­tects Col­lege Union, or some­thing like that.

What about the cur­rent mar­ket situa­tion in your place?
_mj: mmm…rather dif­fi­cult, with the ent­ire cri­sis situa­tion… people tend to shut down and get all blind, for­get­ting that people keep on nee­ding the same things.

Are there any spe­cial archi­tec­tu­ral con­di­ti­ons in Chile?
_mj: struc­tu­ral ones are the most import­ant I guess (Chile has a huge earth­quake history).

Thank you, Manuela Jacard Plubins.

Thanks for con­ta­c­ting me; Machs gut, auf­wie­der sehen. J

Manuela Jacard Plubins
jacard@plataformaculturadigital.cl
www.bvam.cl
www.arq-urb.blogspot.com