Al Borde Arquitectos: circulation and legitimation

Some moments of the emergence of ‘collectives’ and ‘activism’ concepts

Abstract

This article is focused on the first years of the professional history of Al Borde Arquitectos, an office established by David Barragán and Pascual Gangotena in Quito in 2007. Being internationally recognized, critics have broadly pointed out its work as one of the most important examples of the Architecture Collective’s movement, a somewhat problematic concept used to characterize practices attempting to become alternatives to conventional mechanisms of architectural production, and which are also interested in spatial agency and activism. 
Throughout the text, some early years’ key moments of this office will be emphasized, carefully observing how the dissemination, circulation and reception of the work have occurred within the mediatic and institutional circuits, and how this framework has simultaneously developed interpretative categories. In this way, it is intended to shed light on the construction of the conceptualization of this architecture collective.
This contribution -far from trying to make a totalizing synthesis of the concept and its emergence- seeks to unravel the media-institutional framework that provides meaning and validation for this particular mode of space production. At the same time, it also intends to raise questions about the operability of this category in our contemporary context.