Author: Fredy Massad
Translated from the original.

Talking to Rodolfo Livingston (Buenos Aires, 1931) allows us to discover a man and an architect who was ahead of his time. He is a person, a professional who decided to break the rules established by the academy, the unbreakable postulates of the Modern Movement that weighed on students like a burden.He chose to bring architecture and the architect down from the pedestal to work with the inhabitant.

Listening to Livingston is to know the history and present of a figure who proudly writes the word “architecture” in lowercase, likening it to other essential professions and trades. The concept of “architect of the family” is his, and along with his other ideas, it is now part of the language of architecture. Even at almost 90 years old, Livingston remains a firm example of rebellion and determination.

How can we get rid of architects or bring them down from the pedestal they themselves decided to climb?

Firstly, architects must have the desire to work and not despise the small things. The idea that we are born to build large glass towers prevails, and as I said, the small things are despised, which is not just the title of a very good book. Small is beautiful. Furthermore, the interaction with the client begins with an interview. What does the client want to know, and what can we tell them? This is what occupies me currently: how to establish a relationship with the client from the first call.

We are taught to draw our own conclusions and put them into practice, but why aren’t we taught to listen in architecture school? Is it a residue of the Modern Movement, of that conception of the architect believing themselves to be God?

There is some truth to that. Everyone says that God is an architect; no one ever says that God is a notary.

That’s a very astute observation.

It is true that it has to do with education, with the idea that the architect owns the truth, the wisdom, and that they give it to the client in exchange for a price. But in reality, it is not like that. I believe in shared thinking between the client and the architect, mixed in a way that results in a positive outcome. I think it is very important to have the creative participation of the client who wants to build a house.

Your entire career has been a constant struggle to work based on this conviction. Listening to the client, working directly with them. This is an attitude that is starting to be reclaimed now. Architects seem to have understood that they need to come down from that pedestal.

Yes. From different countries, we are being shown that we need to learn that. I believe the movement is underway.

One of your ideas that you have also defended for a long time is that of collective intelligence, in which the architect is just one piece. What is crucial for operating within that structure?

Listening. The way of listening is crucial. It can involve starting by asking the client about all the flaws in their house and then asking about the virtues. From there, we can draw conclusions to know what needs to be done. Not to build a new house, but to remodel what already exists. Sometimes, problems can be solved without building more things by changing the meanings of the spaces. A small, dark kitchen can become another room that is not bothersome, and another space, intended for other uses, becomes the kitchen. Redistribute, reorganize, resignify. The space remains the same, but we give it a different name. That is the key.

You argue that, except in extreme cases, it is not necessary to build from scratch but, as you say, it is enough to work with what already exists, what is already available.

Exactly. Each renovation can succeed, but the accumulation of successes, not only in architecture but also in other things, can result in a failure. In medicine, in poetry… placing one success after another doesn’t result in a big success but rather in a mistake. That’s why the diagnosis is very important, and for the diagnosis, we need information. And how to obtain that information in an initial stage is the method on which my book is written.

The Livingston Method.

It consists of several exercises. One is, as I said before, asking the client to tell me all the complaints they have about their house and see how they can be resolved. Another is for them to point out all the successes of the house without explaining how they were achieved. There we have two separate pieces of information. The third is to ask them what the characteristics of their ideal home would be. With that data, we can orient ourselves with respect to the client. We observe the house, study it, and realize, for example, that the kitchen ended up in the worst place because at first, it was in the right place, but then a room for a child, a storage room, etc., were placed next to it… and finally, the location of that kitchen was ruined. As I said, the solution sometimes is not a new kitchen but rather giving the name “kitchen” to a place that didn’t have it.

That’s it: listening and diagnosis are the way to start.

Aristotle said that the beginning contains the end. The beginning always indicates what the continuation will be. Architects always start by asking “what do you want to do,” and the execution is handed over to the client without further investigation. They go straight to how it would be executed. However, all that previous inquiry gives us information to start and then continue the project, reduced to the minimum with the maximum result.

You constantly emphasize the need to work alongside the client, not operating from the theoretical but from the praxis. Putting yourself in the client’s shoes.

Exactly. Inducing them to ask questions.

The architect, or some architects, should become a figure that you compare to a general practitioner.

A good doctor says there are no diseases, only sick individuals. Each case is different, and we must be able to understand those cases and what solutions can be given to each one.

You say that houses are formed, and over time, the way of living in them modifies them, with the consequence that spaces are created that are probably not used. The living room, for example, is an underutilized space because the residents of the house prefer to gather in the kitchen.

That’s right. The living room is an adoption of English culture, as well as separating the living area from the cooking area. And in reality, in a small house, cooking and living are the same.

Many houses in Buenos Aires were built according to the customs and tastes of a hundred years ago. It is essential to think about how to readapt them for contemporary domestic life.

From the start, those homes were poorly designed. The living room, the kitchen, the play area… All of that, as I said, were elements derived from English culture. They didn’t think in terms of a criollo culture, where the kitchen is large and comfortable, where another person can sit and watch someone cook or help, with a wide view, placing the bedrooms separately. They didn’t think like that. They thought in terms of a schematic.

What is your opinion on the trend that emerged a few decades ago in Argentina of living in gated communities, the “countries”: these non-places that imitate North American models and have little to do with the local culture?

Well, exactly that: they have little to do with us.

Do you think this trend emerged because architects focused on their business rather than providing the social service they should, or because they failed to explain to users that they didn’t need that type of housing and the lifestyle that a gated community offers?

It’s not that they can’t explain it; they don’t even know that they have to explain that.

An important part of your professional career began when you traveled to Cuba. What aspects of the Revolution did you find there?

I found it in everything except architecture.

Cubans evolved because houses were built for the majority of people, not just for the wealthy. In Cuba, there were changes, but not in the way of operating or thinking about houses. The same thing happened there as in capitalist countries: everything became smaller because it had to be built in large quantities.

At that time, the Livingston Method worked better in Cuba than in Argentina.

I visited Cuba thirty-one times. I taught my method to thirty or forty students there, and then we practiced with real cases. We provided assistance to families in the presence of architects, just as I am doing now in Argentina. Instead of a medical residency, it would be an architectural residency.

What was it like during your first time in Havana? What was that spirit that wanted to change reality, the world?

I wasn’t sent to Havana, but to a small town that was working on eradicating a slum, Baracoa. Based on this experience, I wrote the book “House Surgery.”

I worked there in direct contact with the workers, applying my method. At first, there was rejection, as there always is, but eventually, they accepted me because I have a sense of humor that Cubans share, and through that, I could filter my theories and ideas. That’s where I could apply my method for the first time and convince them that it worked.

I had some contact with Fidel Castro and had specific conversations with him. He was primarily interested in construction, in how to build well and how to ensure that everyone had access to housing.

How did you find the country on your last trip? How is the Livingston Method still being applied there?

I was there for the last time in 2016. The country is socialist and not in a coma. That’s the title of the first book I wrote about Cuba, recounting experiences and dialogues with people, illustrated with many photos — I’m a keen photographer. I saw that things are indeed evolving, and the Method is still being applied to a great extent.

Three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, has Cuba managed to maintain a socialist structure in isolation?

The animal that would best describe Cuba is the platypus: a mammal that lays eggs because Cuba is a mixture — it uses elements of capitalism but is socialist. They coexist.

When statistics on diseases or anything else are published, they omit Cuba. They never include it, as if it doesn’t exist, but I insist: Cuba is socialist and not in a coma. Capitalists who are in charge, such as big corporations and political leaders, find it hard to accept, but that’s how it is.

In which other countries are you aware that the Method is being applied?

In Uruguay, Venezuela, Mexico, France, Brazil, and within Spain, in the Canary Islands. Ricardo García applied the Method very well there. I was there with him teaching, working, observing… Through the online courses we offer now, we are teaching studios in Pontevedra, for example. There are isolated initiatives in the world that are proposing, as you say, a revision of how we teach and practice our profession, and there are professionals whom we are very interested in training so that they can, in turn, become trainers and spread this vision.

I understand that you remain staunchly anti-American. What is your view of the world at this moment?

Just as the word “improvement” exists, the word “worsening” should also exist. “Worsenings” have been introduced in the United States. That is the role that Donald Trump currently has in charge.

You have never been afraid to express your opinions clearly. Your calmly defiant response to television presenter Bernardo Neustadt, who was then a journalist close to the government of Carlos Menem, is memorable.

Bernardo Neustadt came up with the idea of discussing abuse and invited several people, including me because I had written a lot about the topic. Neustadt asked me, “Is there abuse in Argentina?” I replied, “Yes, and it starts here, at this table with you.”

You reacted with great courage because Neustadt was a figure with a lot of power at that time, and to that courage, we must add that on the same day, Menem was waiting to be interviewed on the same program.

Your work at the Recoleta Cultural Center is also a very noteworthy part of your career. However, it could be said that you fled from that position you were holding.

When Carlos Menem assumed the presidency, he appointed Carlos Grosso as the mayor of Buenos Aires, and Grosso announced that he was appointing me as the director of the Recoleta Cultural Center because he considered me a person with a good education capable of doing a good job. While I held that position, I always said what I thought, knowing that, of course, they wouldn’t renew my appointment. I accepted because I thought a position related to culture was possible, but not if they had wanted to appoint me as Minister of Economy, for example.

And how do you see the reality in Argentina at this moment? The political situation, the pandemic crisis…

I don’t see it. (Laughs)

Are you disillusioned with politics at nearly 90 years old?

No, I try to do what I can. I can’t change anything, but well…

How do you see the role of architecture in the current pandemic situation? Do you think the crisis caused by the coronavirus will instigate changes in the thinking and planning of architecture on a global level?

In every bad situation, there is always something positive. Online work is growing, and although it cannot be fully compared to the value of in-person work, it has proven to be very useful. Many things can be accomplished. We ourselves have online consultations and communicate with different countries.

This increase in online communication also encourages organizing conversations like the one we are having right now. Perhaps, in the previous situation, I would have waited to meet with you in person either in Buenos Aires or here in Barcelona.

In Barcelona, I greatly admire Park Güell. It’s an extraordinary place, a top-notch architectural and urban work. The entrance, the walk, the seats made with ceramic fragments, designing the seats with the human form in mind…

In your years at the university, was Gaudí studied?

Gaudí didn’t exist. The university was occupied at that time, in the 1950s, with the Modern Movement. Gaudí must have been seen as a kind of madman by those professors.

Now that I think about it, your Curved House has something Gaudí-esque.

It’s possible. I like knowing that I’m influenced by Gaudí.

Who had the idea to build a curved house?

The client. He simply told me, “I want it to be curved.” The challenge was to build a curved house on a lot that was eight meters wide. It’s much easier to introduce curves in an open space, but nonetheless, we succeeded, and I think the result was very good.

I know that you’re not interested in Mies or Le Corbusier. Was it always like that? Did their architecture always seem distant from the human aspect to you?

They never managed to excite me, and yet, they were the leaders in the faculty. I graduated in 1956.

Who were the architects that interested you at that time?

The people, real houses. Reality.

Already in 1956, you were very aware that your essential interest was that. That you were an architect who was outside the, let’s say, orthodoxy of the profession.

Yes, I realized it right away.

Where does this concern in you come from? You come from an affluent family, and it would have been very easy for you to establish yourself professionally through that conventional line: building for the wealthy instead of taking economically less fortunate people as your essential concern.

I was already rich when I was a kid. Being rich wasn’t the ambition of my life.

Even in university, I knew that I wanted to be a different kind of architect.

Throughout your life, how have you seen Buenos Aires transform?

It has also been subject to “peoras” (worsening).

What do you think of the typical popular housing model in Buenos Aires, the “casa-chorizo,” which can now be said to have been lost?

That wasn’t a good design. It was a row. Most people who inherited this type of houses renovated them and continued the line, adding rooms. It consisted of living in a row because that was the paradigm dictated by the narrow lot, 8.66 meters wide. And a large room, spanning from one party wall to the other, was interrupted by a glass to continue the row. Something absurd. Here, in the house where I live, I demolished that and built a large room to have at least one spacious and comfortable living space.

You mentioned that you sometimes violated regulations because they were absurd, the word you just used. Like the regulation about opening windows in party walls in Buenos Aires.

Yes, I have spent my life opening illegal windows. I would tell the municipal inspector that I couldn’t do legal things. Even today, I often help architects who have problems with the municipality due to issues like that.

Does the architect have to be someone who goes against the grain, who questions and forces a revision of regulations?

If the regulations contradict professional ethics, which is based on helping people live better, that is our mission. If the regulations go against that, we have to oppose them.

Translated into English from the Spanish original
source: https://abcblogs.abc.es/viga-en-el-ojo/entrevistas/entrevista-a-rodolfo-livingston.html

Rodolfo Livingston links:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodolfo_Livingston
https://estudiolivingston.com.ar/