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Parque de la Infancia

Pablo Casals-Aguirre

See how Alejandro Aravena transforms physical constraints into solutions.


This short film by Pablo Casals-Aguirre about Elemental's "Parque de la Infancia" (Santiago, Chile) focuses on the way people, and especially children, take possession of an important, new public space.

Through a concrete and incisive narration, the Chilean architect and film maker depicts how the park represents a fundamental occasion for the city to grow and develop as a whole. Open to the public in April 2012, the park was conceived as an important contribution to the everyday life of the inhabitants of the city.

Pablo Casals-Aguirre sets aside a subjective viewpoint and instead gives room to the tangible parts of the architecture. He chooses the perspective of the designers as well as the perception of the final users of the new urban space: the visual narration of the park from the point of view of children and families is alternated to the explanation of the inner reasons of the project made by the architect Alejandro Aravena (from the team Elemental).

In the short film, Aravena describes how the problems related to the large hillside were transformed in distinctive features of the project and the architectural challenge became an occasion to rethink the traditional appearance of the playground park, as well as a high social impact occasion to connect the top of the hill with different parts of the city.

The real characteristics of the architecture as it is conceived and finally lived and perceived by the inhabitants, emerge over any interpretation. The same concrete observation style distinguishes the other films directed, screen played and filmed by Pablo Casals-Aguirre that - along with "Parque de la Infancia" - are part of the traveling "White Mountain" exhibit about a selection of relevant contemporary Chilean Architectures of the past twenty years, already held at the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral in Santiago and at the Aedes Gallery in Berlin.

Credits

Architect: Elemental
Mentioned project: Parque bicentenario de la infancia
Project location: Santiago, Chile

Chile 2012
Duration: 5'21''

Selected for A FLORENCE THAT WILL BE (Florence; February - June 2013), a series of public talks, conferences, and architecture videos on five dates curated by Image for Ordine degli Architetti di Firenze.