AMERICAnodelsud is an organization committed to social equality, promoting investigations and the development of new knowledge within the field of architecture. One of their main objectives is to raise funds to sponsor projects that will bridge the social exclusion gap.
Architects Alejandro Aravena (Santiago, Chile), Solano Benitez (Asuncion, Paraguay), Angelo Bucci (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Rafael Iglesia (Rosario, Argentina), José María Saez (Quito, Ecuador) and Ricardo Sargiotti (Córdoba, Argentina) held the first convention in 2013. Through the 'america[no] del sur' tour, which consisted of three conferences held in different cities in Argentina, they sought to raise the necessary funding.
On April 15th and 17th, Asunción, Paraguay will host the upcoming fundraiser, which Peter Zumthor and Paulo Mendes da Rocha have already agreed to attend in order to support the cause. Without a doubt, the presence of these two internationally-renowned architects will greatly help raise the funds needed by AMERICAnodelsud to follow through with their commitment.
Read AMERICAnodelsud's charter for this year's edition, written by Solano Benitez, below.
"We are imaginary beings. Living things approach one another out of sympathy, they repel each other by hatred, they interact through empathy; like all living creatures, we are aware of the traits that make up our individual character, but humans are imaginary because we assume that our minimum condition of being is dual, the minimum human is of two, our humanity begins the moment that we imagine the concept of 'we', the 'we' is what constitutes 'us' as a whole, taking care of myself by caring for ourselves, depending on our wellbeing to be well. This imaginary construction that minimizes us to two, extends in greatness up to all the rest of 'us-humans'.
If the best we have achieved as a community, expressed in the way that we currently live, has resulted in more than half of us living in poverty, and a quarter of those subsisting in misery; only those that distance themselves from this social inequality gap, a very reduced number of people, have access to doctors, lawyers, dentists or architects; and if these professionals focus their attention on people in need, society penalizes their actions, cutting off electricity, water, or telephone lines; and instead they are sentenced to remain in poverty, allowing misery to persevere.
The result of these repeated actions has perpetuated this scenario of individual recognition and human agony - the shelter created under the hierarchical privileges of a shrinking number of people. Within our safeguard, we must confront this reality with a different plan of action, one which yearns for a completely different outcome, generating a new landscape far from the previous setting of complacent resignation. We must produce new knowledge which enables research and development, generating opportunities that narrow the social exclusion gap, promoting equality as an innate human act.
A small number of awards throughout the world are focused on encouraging relevant practices. Most of these have emerged from the late nineteenth century and onwards, when in numbers, there where 7 times less people than today. It was the Nobel Prize that set a benchmark, its trust funds applied to five disciplines, a prize which on average amounted to $100,000 since its inception, dedicated to peace, physics, chemistry, medicine and literature; and later on other disciplines were added, the Pulitzer's, Pritzker's, etc.
Without the existence of a renowned advocate, but rather as a conscious collective, our society is mobilized towards the causes that it makes its own, recalling fundamental values like ... construction, assistance and defense. And this visible quest encourages fighting for a cause by raising awareness and collecting signatures and money for: whales, shelter, prevention, gender, identity, illness, rehabilitation and many others.
AMERICAnodelsud is an architecture organization committed to social equality, promoting investigations and development in order to generate new knowledge as a trigger to restore human integrity.
AMERICAnodelsud raises funding that will provide the resources to sponsor projects that will bridge the gap of social exclusion.
AMERICAnodelsud, at biennial periods, through relevant actions and the promotion of its purposes commits to allocating the obtained proceeds as follows:
A. 2/3 of the resulting resources will constitute the funds for local projects in AMERICAnodelsud, with referential allocations up to US $20,000 - for young and/or practicing collectives of architecture, who are to be selected through a national competition ruled by a jury made up of individuals of ethical and scientific competence.
B. 1/6 of the resulting resources constitute a partial integration fund for the AMERICAnodelsud global project, referring to the most important reward existing in the discipline worldwide, for whoever is selected in this international competition ruled by a jury made up of individuals of ethical and scientific competence.
C. 1/6 of the resulting resources will be used to support the management and the establishment of the location that will host the following AMERICAnodelsud. The projects produced by AMERICAnodelsud will be publicized as contributions within the discipline.
On April 15th and 17th, Asunción will host our next gathering, and in celebration of this constitutively human action, Peter Zumthor and Paulo Mendes da Rocha have agreed to join our cause. Their presence will help us raise the funds that we will use to set in motion our actions of commitment.
AMERICAnodelsud seeks to establish itself and promote its goals towards human integrity, restoring America as a region where fighting for equality is the main reason of existence."
Solano Benítez
AMERICAnodelsud
March 2015, Asunción
For more information you can email: americanodelsud@gmail.com
