The House

Houses speak

No, no… they don't speak, they sigh. they yell?

They say something.

They emanate…

The houses adapt to those who live in them

Houses, are they alive? Or are they, like clothes, an extension of ourselves?

What happens when the house does not house one, or two, but five or more people; how the house expresses the personality of this group -family- and how the family, as a unit and as a whole, expresses itself in the house

People leave, some stay, others come and go. The house begins to show itself as a photograph or an old image of what you once were and what others still are. Plants grow, rooms empty, and gardens take their own shape, their natural path.

The house, of course, is not alone, there is something that always surrounds it, another individual or community -families. In what way is this group expressed now, in what way does the street link this “individuality” in a space for all?

The house always wants to tell us something, could it be that it is born with its own voice, or are we giving it to it? Could it be that it can rebel, or does it simply show symbols that are not so clear to our eyes? Could it be that we don't want to see them, that, through carelessness, materials, dripping rain and empty rooms, it is trying to tell us something? Could it be that we don't want to hear it?

When a house changes hands.

Inherited clothing. The exchanged house. The cut grass. The polished stone.

I don't want to use the word "essence" because of its now null meaning, however, the house is a clear reflection of what was lived there, of the fights and discussions, encounters and disagreements, loves and heartbreaks, first experiences, first parties. and first meetings, of your loneliness.

Finding yourself in buildings.

The word building does not do justice to the depth that a house suggests.

The house will never be just a property. The walls, the floors, the ceiling, the garden, the pool, the furniture, are only symbols that speak of something else. Life and day to day, afternoons and nights. An armchair is not only for sitting; a piece of furniture, in all its humility, is offered to you and to anyone who wants to use it. A bed or a bunk, regardless of its design, is alive. A piece of furniture feeds on time, a piece of furniture feeds on the past in order to continue existing, the future is uncertain.

When you leave, you take something from home with you. The house is inherited, the materials, the smell and the objects. The physical and the immaterial. Your deceased grandparents live in your house; when you leave, there will be your brothers and your parents, your friends. The materials are never involuntary or superficial: a mud floor, a gravel terrace or garden, the pool that became a pond.

The house could not be tendentious, but personal, a concrete wall that is going to go out of style or a tile roof dictated by the regulations of a subdivision. How do the rules limit -or promote- expression?

Limits. The limits of a piece of land, of a budget, of a program or of a construction regulation. The physical limits, the real limits, the symbolic or cultural limits. One, as an individual or as a group -family-, moves within certain limits, is flexible; the limits move, you move them, many times unconsciously or involuntarily, and you find yourself in an extreme that you thought was unknown.

Shared limits and inherited, educated, imposed limits. Individual limits, apprehended limits, discovered limits.

One carries his house with him and as we have seen, everything that the house entails, one is never superficial.