Crisis and Progress: Monument and Legal Training Center

Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Cumbaya, Ecuador, Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseno Interior

Project idea

Unintentional versus intentional monumentality is the main issue that this project entails. Two decades have taken place since the most disastrous economic crisis that Ecuador has ever experienced, the Feriado Bancario. However, the memory of this event is still strongly present in the Ecuadorian collective memory. The critical-architectural response is reflected in the creation of social awareness through an intentional monument that places the Feriado Bancario as a protagonist. As a strategy, it is being used a direct criticism of corruption in Ecuador, using the main variables of the crisis as generators of the architectural concept. Transforming the negative perception of this event by a resilient perspective.

Project description

The intervention seeks to recognize the past as an important factor to evolve consciously, creating a conscious pattern in a cycle of repetition of errors and dishonesty. In this way, a monument with intentional and sustainable values is proposed through a helical narrative, as a solution to the constant acts of fraud and injustices of the country hidden in gloomy memories. This allows, specifically to reuse a building, which was never completed and now abandoned in the financial district of Quito, which coincidentally in the past was in the hands of the protagonists of the crisis.

Technical information

Floor plans, sections, elevations, and visualizations.