La analogía de la torre con un cuerpo de sangre caliente es…
una acertada manera – sin introducir alusión ni emblema
algunos, sin recurrir a códigos más o menos secretos o
a símbolos da significado conocido – de utilizarla como
alegoría de una sociedad en trance de morir; pues si una
sociedad es un conjunto limitado de hombres unidos por
ciertos vínculos, nada parece más ajustado que simbolizarla
como un cuerpo constituido a grandes rasgos de la misma
naturaleza que el del hombre – esto es, de carne –, que se
adapta a la forma de lo primero que hace el hombre cuando
vive bajo su leyes: el edificio.
[Babel]… de Cujas ruinas saldría la diversidad de lenguas
y pueblos y, por consiguiente, de dioses. Una vuelta a
los dioses departamentales, mucho más atentos – por
especializados – a los destinos humanos…
Juan Benet
La construcción de la torre de Babel
175
EUROPA
6
THE AERAULIC CORE
“Engineering is no science. At best, it is an art, at worst a technique!” Philippe
Samyn, architect and engineer, weighs his words. His experience as a builder, his
dialogue with engineers, industry leaders, certification organisations; his long-
standing interest in the standardisation of procedures within his own agency; his
attachment to the concept of
efficiency,
i.e., an overall
design
of architecture, as
opposed to mere technical performance, these are the assets that allow to antici-
pate, in all the stages of the design, the best quality of use for the Europa building.
The architect keeps in mind that all buildings with any ambition are prototypes; and
that for lack of repetition or tried and tested models, it is the architectural drawing
that allows to concentrate knowledge, to promote its transfer, to elevate and per-
fect the operational abilities of a team vis-à-vis the novelty of each project.
“Improving the level of quality of the drawing” implies that the architect does
not delegate final responsibility to anyone; that he sees to its enrichment, its
authentication, its validation, its archival storage. The drawing guarantees the
accuracy of the art. The lesson is all the more essential that technical logic ad-
heres spontaneously, anarchically, to objects or partial systems, cutting itself off
from architecture. It is undoubtedly one of the most brazen conquests of mod-
ern construction, i.e., integrating into the structure all of the building’s technical
functions. But shapes and functions form relationships that are virtually antago-
nistic: architecture is pushed to a demanding diplomacy; it only plays its role
through its knowledge of the conflicts in the constructed space.
This analogy of the tower with a warm-blooded body is… a
very successful way, without allusion or emblem, without
resorting to more or less secret codes or well-known symbols
– of creating the allegory of a society about to die; since if a
society is a limited group of people united by specific links,
nothing seems more accurate than to symbolise it by a body
made up roughly of the same substance as that of man – flesh
– and which adapts to the shape of the first thing man creates
that lives under its laws, i.e., a building.
[Babel]… which is said to have produced a diversity of lan-
guages and peoples and consequently of gods from its ruins. A
return to more attentive, departmental gods, as they are spe-
cialised in man’s destiny…
Juan Benet,
The Construction of the tower of Babel
THE AERAULIC CORE
