Introduction

0:09

so

0:10

anna maria duran castillo do i have that

0:12

pronounced right

0:14

callisto callisto okay perfect

0:17

anna maria duran callisto and

0:20

i’m really happy to be speaking with you

0:22

as you’re walking through new york

0:24

city on this very moment which is great

0:27

uh we’re here today to talk about the

0:29

importance of

0:30

amazon which is uh part of michael

0:33

serkin’s

0:34

essay of 250 things that an architect

0:37

should know

0:38

the importance of the amazon is point

0:40

number 167

0:42

and i just thought it would be

0:43

appropriate as an ecuadorian architect

0:46

an

0:46

environmental planner uh you co-founded

0:50

the studio a studio a0 uh maybe 18 years

0:53

ago in 2002 is that right

0:56

yes it’s been a while and i think what

0:59

makes this

The importance of the Amazon

1:00

topic of particular interest uh to get

1:03

your perspective on is that you’re

1:05

currently underway on a dissertation on

1:07

the history of

1:08

the um amazon basin an urbanization in

1:11

the amazon basin

1:13

so the importance of the amazon is uh

1:16

quite the question to ask of you i would

1:18

say

1:19

so absolutely sure and i think that

1:22

right now

1:24

you know after the dramatic

1:27

fires the tragic actually fires that we

1:29

witnessed

1:31

last year and in the phase of climate

1:34

change

1:36

i think that the amazon is finally on

1:38

the table

1:40

but it was pretty foreseeable that what

1:42

is happening would happen

1:44

and that’s what is so upsetting to me it

1:46

was totally foreseeable

1:48

i would say that it was foreseeable

1:49

since the 70s

1:52

um which is the decade when when oil

1:55

companies penetrated the ecuadorian

1:57

amazon

1:58

and after you know seeing the

2:02

outcomes of that penetration it was very

2:05

clear to me and i think to many latin

2:08

americans

2:09

that extra activism

2:12

was simply going to deliver us to the

2:16

tragedy that we’re experiencing today

2:19

michael understood that tragedy he

2:22

he was a visionary i think he could also

2:25

first

2:26

see it coming and i think he understood

2:29

that

2:29

that was not the paradigm for

2:32

development for latin america

2:33

that would not leave us into autonomy

2:37

emancipation

2:40

any form of freedom really a let alone

2:42

economic development

2:44

what we have right now in the region is

2:47

huge

2:48

negative what they call in economy and

2:50

negative externalities

2:52

and one of those externalities i would

2:54

say is urbanization

2:57

but thinking about michael and your

2:59

question

3:00

i think that michael i was shocked when

3:02

i went through his points

3:04

yeah and i read 50 57 you said 67

3:08

yeah and you know the importance of the

3:11

amazon and i read that and i was like oh

3:13

michael

3:14

i miss him so much and anna marie you

3:18

know michael very well because you’ve

Design and sustainability

3:21

known him for over a decade before his

3:23

passing

3:24

at least i would say is that right and

3:26

it started with

3:28

um a question on design and

3:29

sustainability

3:31

you were at the keto architecture

3:33

biennial i believe you were

3:35

maybe you were curating it even and you

3:38

invited michael to come speak is that

3:39

how the introduction started

3:41

that’s how our friendship started

3:43

absolutely a common friend of ours moji

3:45

parrot lu

3:46

who is also a new yorker who was born in

3:49

iran

3:50

introduced us it was we invited michael

3:54

for a biennale that was titled

3:56

visible cities and we wanted precisely

4:01

architects and urbanists were thinking

4:02

about sustainability for sure

4:05

and i think that one thing that always

4:06

shocked me about michael

4:09

and it has taken me a long time to

4:11

understand his vision and

4:12

actually i understood it through

4:13

amazonia was that he always incorporated

4:17

architecture into the i mean agriculture

4:19

into the urban

4:20

fabric and that was a i don’t think that

4:23

was very common among architects when i

4:25

graduated

4:26

and i always try to imagine is that

4:29

possible

4:30

can we have an agroecology in the city

4:34

does it even make sense because the

4:37

paradigm

4:38

the western paradigm comes from

4:42

you know the compact city of the greco

4:45

roman

4:45

empire or of mesopotamia

4:49

so the ancient cities of that area of

4:51

the world

4:52

are a cellular compact city

4:56

even world very often that is surrounded

5:00

by a productive hinderland

5:02

that is surrounded by this forest

5:05

and generally the forest has mythical

5:07

connotations to it

5:09

whereas what you see in the amazon and i

5:12

think that’s why

5:14

probably i’m speculating but i i know i

5:17

mean

5:18

michael was one of those renaissance

5:21

encyclopedic spirits he knew so much

5:24

about everything

5:26

and he was so multidisciplinary in his

5:28

approach to the city and architecture

5:31

that i am pretty sure that he was

5:34

looking

5:35

at archaeology and that he knew that

5:39

archaeologists were unveiling pretty

5:42

large settlements in amazonia

5:45

and what’s amazing about these

5:46

settlements which

5:49

you know you could argue are they cities

5:51

are they not

5:52

that’s a big debate within archaeology

5:53

actually but what is the fact is that

5:56

they were very large

5:57

some of them they’re estimating had

6:00

300 350 000

6:03

human beings in them in the shingu for

6:06

example in brazil

6:08

crackenberger an archaeologist was

6:10

studying the patterns of settlement

6:12

there

6:12

the ancient patterns oops i’m sorry the

6:16

ancient patterns of settlement there

6:17

estimates populations of that size

6:21

so we’re talking about cities that are

6:23

as big as the maya cities

6:25

you know the tropical rainforests of the

6:27

yucatan peninsula

6:29

central america southern mexico were as

6:33

inhabited as the rainforest

6:34

of the amazon and what’s amazing about

6:37

archaeology is that what they’re

6:39

demonstrating

6:40

is that these cultures not only

6:44

lived because we always say you know

6:47

speaking about those cultures oh

6:48

they knew how to live with nature but

6:51

what we’re realizing is that it’s not

6:53

just that they knew how to live with

6:55

nature

6:56

they knew how to nurture how to

6:59

procreate this nature

7:02

so you know these cultures belong to a

7:04

very different ontology from our own

7:06

and michael knew that and i think he was

7:09

interested in this anthology because the

7:11

more you study amazonian settlements

7:15

the more you realize that they’re a

7:16

hybrid

7:18

of what we would call normally urban

7:20

what we think of as urban which is you

7:22

know

7:23

[Music]

7:24

[Laughter]

7:25

this since we’re in new york but

7:28

they interwoved with the agricultural

7:31

with the infrastructure

7:33

with the architecture so everything was

7:35

indivisible

7:37

so it was a very different ontology of

7:40

the urban

7:41

that was completely integrated with the

7:43

notion of

7:44

landscaping landforming terraforming as

7:47

michael you know

7:50

his research practice terraform

7:52

terraform that’s right

7:53

it’s totally about this terraforming geo

7:57

engineering we would say today

7:59

bioengineering

8:01

and i would even say that it’s even more

8:03

than that

8:04

because it’s not just an engineering

8:06

mindset what you find

8:08

among um and that’s

8:11

it’s difficult to use these words but

8:13

call them native americans

8:15

indigenous populations first nations

8:19

what you find is that there were these

8:21

were spiritual ecologies

8:24

they were eco poetics geopoetics

8:28

biopoetics i think i can take these off

8:30

here right now we’re in the audubon

8:32

terrace here

8:33

ah nice really beautiful nice and this

8:36

one here

8:37

in the background is the hispanic

8:39

society of new york

8:41

which was a place i had never been to

8:43

and i happen to be here today

8:45

for all sorts of reasons i won’t waste

8:48

your time explaining

8:49

but look at what i find here talking

8:51

about the amazon and michael

8:53

and these what i would call is that what

8:55

they did is not cities in the way we

8:57

understand them but

8:58

urban agro ecologies i think michael

9:02

would have nodded at me right now and

9:03

said

9:04

totally you finally got it because you

9:06

already knew this 10 years ago when he

9:08

met me

9:10

because he had already studied the

9:11

arawak settlements he had already looked

9:13

at that

9:14

you know he had already read the

9:15

archaeologist but i hadn’t yet

9:17

and it’s taken me a decade to to reach

9:20

it but look at this beauty that i found

9:22

here i’m going to show you it’s the

9:24

map of the uk river in peru

9:27

and look at this beauty you know like if

9:30

you do a tour

9:31

it’s showing you the ukayali river

9:34

it’s a map that was done by the

9:37

missionaries

9:38

who entered the uk ali this is already

9:41

in the 19th century so it’s not

9:43

that old in terms of the conquest you

9:45

know the conquest starts in 1492

9:48

this is already 18 19th century

9:51

missionary time catholic missions go

9:54

penetrating this

9:55

region and more than anything you know

9:57

we’re

9:58

we’re talking about the area that would

10:02

that would in a way inaugurate the

10:04

rubber boom

10:05

later on i mean england 17

10:09

1750s they’re already industrializing

10:11

and they’re going to be needing rover

10:13

very soon and the rubber is going to be

10:14

coming from here because so

10:17

just to intercept for a second so the

10:19

rubber boom actually started

Industrialization in the Amazon

10:21

the industrialization which took the

10:23

course away from

10:25

the indigenous or ancestral knowledge

10:27

the way of managing the forest

10:29

and agriculture together combined is

10:32

that correct

10:33

i would say that that was the most

10:35

important rupture

10:36

in the amazon because you see this

10:38

rupture in

10:39

mesoamerica earlier you see it in the

10:42

16th century there you see it in the

10:44

16th century in the central andes

10:46

but in amazonia that first true

10:49

rupture you don’t experience until the

10:52

rubber boom

10:54

yes so that that’s when everything was

10:57

upset

10:58

by what is called you know marx called

11:02

it primitive accumulation

11:05

then harvey has iterated it as

11:08

um accumulation through this possession

11:11

i mean sociologists and theod

11:15

and historians and theoreticians have

11:17

tried to give different names

11:19

to point to the fact that global

11:22

capitalism

11:24

does build upon the wealth of nature and

11:27

cheap labor

11:28

as they call it cheap labor and i’m not

11:31

a neo-marxist but these

11:32

concepts have been very useful to me in

11:34

terms of naming what i see happening in

11:36

the amazon

11:38

and naming you know the negative

11:40

externalities that i see occurring there

11:42

and of course the question that you have

11:44

as a latin american

11:45

next is well what’s the alternative if

11:49

if global capitalism is going to absorb

11:52

every corner of the planet and now some

11:56

some are talking about planetary

11:58

urbanism like neil brenner

12:00

whose work is founded on the work of le

12:02

febre and

12:03

you know again to going back to that

12:05

notion that

12:07

the urban footprint and that’s a concept

12:09

that michael loved

12:10

the concept of the environmental

12:12

footprint that the environmental

12:13

footprint of new york for example

12:16

probably probably penetrates the amazon

12:18

and we’re not even aware of it when

12:20

we’re standing here

12:21

looking at this incredible cartography

12:23

of the uk ali

12:24

and we think we have nothing to do with

12:26

it

12:27

but we’re probably consuming it in very

12:29

many ways

12:31

and i felt that very strongly when i was

12:33

living in los angeles you know because

12:34

it’s the land of

12:36

chebron which merged with texaco which

12:39

of course

12:40

takes me to texas but there was this

12:42

whole

12:43

relationship between the petroleum

12:46

economy

12:48

and the petroleum urban form which los

12:50

angeles i think is a prime example of

12:52

that petroleum form

12:54

you cannot live there without a car and

12:57

you’re bound to

12:58

just fill up your tank every day

13:02

and that tank i was aware was not just

13:04

the innocent tank in your car

13:07

it’s also it’s also

13:10

a tank a warfare tank you know what i

13:13

mean

13:14

so there’s this double connotation for

13:16

tank

13:17

in my mind as well and you know you’re

13:19

feeling you’re filling up the tank and

13:21

and and i couldn’t help thinking about

13:24

the amazon every time i would see a

13:26

chebron

13:27

a gas station i would be like i hope i

13:30

have at least some gas to make it to the

13:32

next one because i don’t want to feel my

13:33

tank here

13:35

i had to use the car and i generally

13:36

don’t

13:38

i try to keep my life as

13:41

far you know as distance of fossil fuels

13:44

as possible but it’s very difficult most

13:48

of the things that we consume have

13:49

petroleum in it

13:51

in them but going back to to

13:54

to michael and his his um

13:58

fixation in with amazonia i think it was

14:00

because of that because the paradigm

14:02

that he envisioned for the west

14:05

had been constructed by amazonians who

14:08

would

14:10

geo-form their cities

14:13

they were agricultural when you look for

14:15

example at the hydrological

14:16

infrastructures of pre-columbian cities

14:18

they’re not just satisfying the needs

14:21

that

14:22

urban fabrics if we detach them from the

14:24

agricultural have

14:26

these hydrological hydrological

14:27

infrastructures

14:29

have a scale that makes it pretty

14:30

evident i think to archaeologists

14:33

that they were satisfying both the urban

14:34

and the agricultural needs of a society

14:37

and it’s because these were urban

14:39

agricultures

14:41

they were territorial cities and the

14:43

city

14:44

you know the settlement it’s almost like

14:46

the pinnacle of all this land forming

14:48

and

14:49

all these working with nature not

14:51

against nature

14:54

when you talk about this is there’s no

14:56

line between the city or the forest or

14:58

agriculture it’s all combined

15:01

oh yes there’s no line whatsoever it is

15:03

meaningless just as the line between

15:05

water and soil is pretty meaningless in

15:07

nature the line between

15:09

the urban and the agri-cultural and

15:12

in that case i would say agri-ecological

15:14

and the infrastructure

15:16

and the architectural completely dilutes

15:19

and i think that we have a lot to learn

15:21

from those cities

15:22

we really need to pay attention to them

15:25

so

15:26

this is probably the last question

15:27

because i mentioned this is short and i

15:29

know we could go on forever but

PreColumbian Cities

15:31

you you’d mention when we last talked

15:33

that you were just starting to introduce

15:35

the history of pre-columbian cities to

15:38

students that you’re teaching

15:39

and what what are the lessons that these

15:42

cities

15:43

bring you’ve started to hint at it but

15:45

really what what are the things that we

15:46

can see that we can look forward to

15:48

from looking at they were amazing cities

15:52

and i think that the critical aspect

15:53

about them is what we were discussing

15:55

because these were animistic cultures

15:58

when nature is sacred to you

16:01

your behavior towards nature is very

16:03

different from when

16:05

when nature is simply a resource to be

16:08

exploited

16:09

so they had a relationship with nature

16:11

that was based on the notion that it is

16:13

sacred

16:14

so one thing that you find is that they

16:15

were always

16:17

connecting to larger forces to the

16:20

cosmos

16:21

to the mountains to all the sacred

16:24

elements in space it could be a lake

16:26

it could be a mountain and there there

16:28

are all sorts of terms in the language

16:30

to refer to them

16:31

the apus the wakas the kochas

16:34

and the the more i study pre-columbian

16:36

cities and it doesn’t matter whether

16:38

we’re looking at the pre-columbian

16:39

cities of mesoamerica

16:40

or central andes or amazonia or the

16:44

parana further down

16:46

even though you know in form they differ

16:49

significantly because the cultural

16:51

diversity in the americas in the 16th

16:52

century is beyond description

16:55

just so that you get a sense of this

16:56

coexistence of diversity that they

16:58

achieved

16:59

if right now more than 300 languages are

17:01

spoken in amazonia

17:03

imagine how many languages were spoken

17:05

in the americas in the 16th century

17:07

so this was a land of interconnected

17:10

networks of immense diversity

17:12

huge autonomy and you see that and this

17:16

autonomy

17:17

in a way was related to the fact that

17:19

you had to place yourself

17:20

in nature in a way that it could be

17:23

productive so you would tear as it

17:25

you would create these terra planes

17:28

these antennas

17:29

as we say in spanish which are you know

17:31

terraces that have

17:33

retaining walls and irrigation canals

17:35

embedded in them

17:36

or you would create the kochas or the

17:39

chinampas

17:40

in flood water management system that

17:43

were also agricultural that would also

17:44

provide for transportation

17:46

that would also serve as visual bare

17:49

wares in some parts where you could

17:50

create

17:51

ponds or reservoirs but what you see

17:55

the more you start you know the more we

17:56

study this with the students and the

17:58

more we invite

17:59

archaeologists to give us lectures and

18:01

archaeologists

18:02

tend to be focused in regions but what

18:05

they describe

18:06

is this incredible landscape

18:10

we would say today engineering

18:13

but again it’s important to emphasize

18:16

that this is very poetic

18:18

it’s not just engineering so there’s

18:21

this like

18:22

geophotic framework that is reshaping

18:25

the land

18:26

to make it productive and to make the

18:28

settlement feasible

18:31

not i would say without destroying it

18:33

and even

18:34

more you know it’s even better by

18:36

enhancing

18:39

human beings can enhance nature there’s

18:41

no reason why they should

18:42

be destructive we have this like my my

18:45

advice to susan hey calls it the bambi

18:47

syndrome you know we have this idea that

18:49

human beings are detrimental to nature

18:52

that all they can do is

18:53

burn the amazon difference destroy

18:57

but when you look at these areas for

18:59

example in the central andes

19:01

in their natural state and when you look

19:03

at the coaches at the wetlands that were

19:05

artificial that were

19:07

being produced because these cultures

19:08

were excavating the land and creating

19:11

dunes and you know planting all sorts of

19:14

species that were useful to them

19:16

culturally

19:17

you think wow this is what humanity can

19:21

do

19:21

we have a great relationship with nature

19:24

at what

19:25

point did we switch that

19:28

so drastically and when you look at the

19:30

history of latin america

19:32

and i include the united states in that

19:34

history because for a very long time

19:37

this country was part of latin america

19:39

geopolitically even

19:41

and of course it was all native land

19:44

beforehand

19:46

but the more you look at the history um

19:50

the more you realize that we all these

19:52

grandiose landscapes that we

19:54

adore to a large extent to these

19:58

landscape shapers to these artists of

20:01

the ground

20:02

of the water of the air of the stars

20:05

it was amazing and i feel that we need

20:07

to reverse colonization now

20:09

you know we need to be humble and

20:11

understand that the west is in a crisis

20:13

that we don’t know how to escape this

20:15

idea of exploitation

20:17

which is exfoliation of nature and its

20:20

peoples

20:22

because we’re creating a lot of poverty

20:24

as we create

20:25

wealth and and really be humbler and

20:28

and stop and say what can i learn from

20:31

you

20:33

ancient american cultures

20:36

what can we learn from those of you who

20:38

gave us as a legacy this

20:40

amazing territory

20:43

because we’re intoxicating it we’re

20:45

burning it we’re translating immense

20:47

biodiversity which archaeologists are

20:49

measuring in the

20:50

in the islands in albany clark ericsson

20:53

says that when you measure biodiversity

20:55

in those areas that are evidently

20:56

anthropogenic

20:57

it’s actually higher than it is in areas

21:00

that are left

21:00

to themselves and it’s precisely because

21:03

human beings were managing the forest

21:05

and thinking

21:06

which animals like which species what

21:08

should i emphasize here

21:10

let’s get more of more of these fruits

21:12

and more of these

21:13

you know of

21:16

whatever the the ecological knowledge

21:18

was amazing

21:19

and they knew how to work with it and

21:21

now what we do are monocrops

21:23

industrial monocrops in the name of

21:24

development and progress

21:26

they yeah you know it makes you wonder

21:30

is it really development and progress or

21:33

are we becoming suicidal as a culture in

21:35

our arrogance

21:38

there’s a lot to unpack there and ana

21:40

maria i’m sorry we can’t go deeper but

21:43

this is this is an interesting place to

21:45

leave us in where

21:46

we have to you know contemplate that

21:48

real dilemma and decide which way we

21:50

want to go

21:51

but um thank you so much for your time

21:54

no what

21:55

about a bit about michael and

21:58

sharing a bit about the amazon and we’ll

22:00

keep watching

22:01

the research that you do and when your

22:03

dissertation is published and all of

22:04

that but thank you

22:05

for your time thank you nice meeting you

22:08

amy it’s been a pleasure

22:10

likewise have a good rest of your tour

22:13

i will thank you bye-bye ciao

22:33

you

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