1 Feb 2023 | People

The contemporary Smiljan Radic

The work of Chilean architect Smiljan Radic is contemporary. Not only because it is happening now, in our age and time but because of what it means.

DS.WRITER:

Tasos Giannakopoulos

The work of Chilean architect Smiljan Radic is contemporary. Not only because it is happening now, in our age and time but because of what it means. It is contemporary in a way that even Søren Kierkegaard would agree upon this characterisation. Moments belonging to different times are synchronised at a single time - like his famous example of Holy Communion where the present of the faithful and Christ’s act of redemption become one. Whether it be a house or a mundane bus stop, Smiljan Radic brings to the same space, times that do not belong in the same moment. The simplicity and materials of contemporary construction are brought together with rocks, wood and fabric that bear their own time. He is evidently modern because he is a “believer” of Modernism - so much that the house he designed in 2013 in Vilches, Chile is inspired by and named after Poem of the Right Angle by Modernism’s great pioneer, Le Corbusier. He is, at the same time, primitive in his choices of forms and materials that he proposes and designs - they sometimes resemble eggs, like in Serpentine Pavillion of 2014, while other times clouds made of transparent membrane for the Alexander McQueen collection of 2022.

Indeed, the power of Radic’s design is best showcased in constructions that host in their interiors the ephemeral element, like the Alexander McQueen flagship store in Bond-street, London, a project which marked the beginning of their long-lasting collaboration. Inspired in collaboration with McQueen’s creative director, Sarah Burton, the store, as mentioned by its architect in the small documentary shot for this work, combines extreme times in the same field. On one side the speed of fashion and its seasonal collections and, on the other, the slow, geological times, as expressed in the sculptures of Marcela Correa, collaborator and wife of the architect. These sculptures, which resemble rocks and trees, have been placed meticulously to guide the visitors in their journey inside the store. “We use a lot of sculpture and rocks,” says Smiljan Radic, “because sometimes in new places you need a sense of different times... They give a complexity that new places don’t have.” The interaction of the spaces and materials placed within the overall creation and the collections it hosts leads to a unique dialogue between different times and different creative fields.

Alexander McQueen London Flagship | Photo Mikael Olsson

McQueen_s London flagship store | wallpaper.com

McQueen_s London flagship store | cloudfront.com

A respective creation is an inflatable dome, constructed for the Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2022 collection, bearing the name London Skies. It was strategically placed on the rooftop of a car park in Tobacco Dock and hosted the first show of the brand after a 20 year-long hiatus. The transparent, cloud-like structure was placed on the roof of the 12 story building and -like its name- is inspired by the sky view under which Alexander McQueen and his collaborators work every day. The meteorological, ephemeral, dynamic phenomenon is transformed into a stable pneumatic structure in order to host, in the end, a seasonal runway show. The overall image of the combination of the futuristic strained form - which can be easily disassembled and reassembled for other following events- with the robust brick building as a base, creates a contemporary and unexpected situation.