We had the wonderful opportunity to visit four different Smiljan Radic projects while in Santiago that really epitomize his ability to craft space. I believe he will be one of the great South American architects of our age, because he seems to have developed a subtlest eye for the connection from detail scale to diagrammatic essence, and the sensory experience that links them. Both his crypt design for Catedral Metropolitana, Mestizo, and Museo Precolombio show how he manipulates perceptual weight to create spaces of magic.
The first thing to know about Smiljan Radic is that he loves stones. Like a lot. He had a 14 ton Andean boulder imported to London for his installment of the Serpentine Pavilion. In his Santiago projects, he consistently used boulders and perceptually heavy structures to emphasize the space created by his architecture. This floating tectonic weight makes it feel as if the ceiling was hoisted with great difficulty, much like Gaudi would often do in projects like the Colonia Guell Crypt. Radic also often places visually (or physically) heavy elements on-end, or floating, sounding a low hum of the fantastic in the heads of visitors.
This sketch of the ceiling of Mestizo explores that heavy, floating feeling that brings magic to Radic’s work.
This divider between the holy and accessible spaces shows the magic, fragile-feeling tectonics of Radic’s details.
I believe fear is a subtle tool he employs; that fear that brews into the sublime. Because there is some sense of danger or awe in being under one of his roofs, and feeling a weight is floating above you. While it always feels safe and sturdy, his spaces feel opened or hoisted for some brief period, that they may be swallowed up or tumbled after you leave and the magic dissipates. This creates a special sense of wonder and silent awe that he employs perfectly in the Crypt and the Museo, and more casually uses in the Mestizo dining area. By using architecture to create strangely floating tectonic structures, Radic plunges his guests into the realm of the fantastic, a space where they are primed to appreciate the textural details and design excellence of his architecture.
This descent into Radic’s crypt prepares guests for texture and weight, and primes them for the strange weight of the space.