Back in the 60′s, Puerto Rico’s government considered the development of a social housing project called “Habitat“. The monstrous structure had its life, for pre-fabricated pieces were actually ordered and many arrived on the island. Thankfully, it was never built.

As this cartoon from 1969 satirically emphasizes, the social implications associated to the design of this structure would have only lead to a catastrophe. It’s labyrinthic layout would have provided a space for crime and drugs to prosper, and a new meaning to the term “cacerío“.

It’s a learning experience to look back at these materials. As a designer, I can imagine all of the blind efforts that must have been pushed forward by the building’s creators. As this case clearly illustrates, designers have the responsibility of understanding the implications of one’s work, specially if the social impact is at a scale that affects communities or cities. Of course, you may think “duh”, but proposals like Habitat make me aware that not everyone out there actually thinks this way.

Today, there are a few of the prefabricated pieces of the Habitat still around Puerto Rico.

Recently my father, an avid architectural historian, managed to track 2 of them down in the town of Arecibo. These pieces never fulfilled their original purpose, but today form a new kind of habitat that keeps intriguing some of us whose curiosities never sleep.

If you are near New York City on October 29, AIA/NY is hosting a one night lecture event around the work of three Puerto Rican architects. One of them is my father, Jorge Rigau, FAIA. Sadly, I won’t be able to make it, but I am sure it will be a nice gathering, so check it out if you have some time.

This group of Puerto Rican military personnel works to exterminate rats, and every other kind of rodents, via asphyxiating gases. From Puerto Rico Ilustrado, 1921, No. 582

mother: [Places plate on table.] Here’s breakfast.
daughter: [Arms-crossed with some attitude.] Just toast? Dad gives me scrambled eggs.
mother: [Places plate on table.] Scrambled eggs…
daughter: [With more attitude and a rude gesture towards the plate…] Plain scrambled eggs? Dad makes it how I want. And to drink? …juice, chocolate or coffee.
mother: [Brings some orange juice.]
daughter: And the whole wheat?
mother: [Frustrated]
Commercial voice: Our breakfasts do not have competition. Only in our restaurants do we prepare you a real breakfast, complete and your way.
[Commercial ends with father and daughter eating.]

This advertisement currently airs as part of the commercial prelude to feature films in Puerto Rico’s movie theaters. Due to its dry humor, its consistent showing during the summer offerings, and the context of the cinematic apparatus, every movie-going person now knows it by heart. The phrase ¡¿Revoltillo pelao?! has become part of everyday conversations.

On a first glance it’s a fairly standard advertisement: short and to the point. Its story relies on contemporary characters and scenarios we can quickly understand, an association it uses to explicitly inform, with a hyperbolical narrative, the benefits of this particular fast food chain. Yet, a deeper look reveals a myth(¹) portrayed by a series of implicit messages which reference a drastic cultural shift in the Puerto Rican understanding of family values: the divorce has been socially accepted.

The unchallenged nature of this advertisement is sad news for the social status quo as it portrays parents competing for the attention of a child, a sequence that feels as the ad’s presumption of relevance (which seems to assimilate too well with observing audiences, almost as modal behavior).

Clearly, the contemporary concept of the nuclear family has changed, but I question the advertising agency’s social responsibility in the creation of this text and its latent functions. Ironically, even though I hope to not have to experience one ever, in many cases I think divorce is a flexible mechanism that can help solve many ills. And yet, as responsible social content creators, advertisers should not place audiences in situations that lead to laughter when it is based on a scenario such as the one portrayed. Designers and communicators have the responsibility to do better. This should be especially true in the field of advertising which is, as Prof Meredith Davis of NC State University says, the most socially relevant of all communication disciplines.

Irresponsible statements in communication only lead to a confused fabrication of ideal behaviors, which in the end lead to superficial and unmeaningful myths.

***UPDATE*** El Nuevo Día reported that the makers of the advertisement have decided to stop its airing.

All photos by Gus Pantell.

The early part of the XXth century witnessed the construction of an extensive web of irrigation channels to distribute water to homes and farmlands in Puerto Rico along more than 35 kms. Still in operation to this day, throughout time different individuals and groups have acknowledged the scenic value of these channels; however, to most they remain unknown.

Conceived by the architectural firm, Jorge Rigau FAIA, Architects, the pilot project was designed to garner support from government officials, institutions, and the general public for the development of Isabela’s irrigation channels as a key ecotourism attraction in Puerto Rico. The “canales” travel across plains, mountains, and forests of varying microclimate, flora, fauna, and views. Maintenance paths that run continuously next to them could today be refashioned as nature trails accessible to the general public, children, senior citizens, and handicapped people alike. This pilot project set out to prove the feasibility of this initiative.

After public access to these facilities had been denied for eighty years, one kilometer of channels was opened up for two days, attracting an audience of over 3,000 registered people, including key decision-makers like the Island’s Interim Governor. Environmental leaders and university professors joined the long lines of visitors from all over the Island.Advocacy is often linked to demonstrations, more than often committed to stop something from happening. In our case, we chose to demonstrate otherwise: How something can, in fact, happen. Letters of support have started to come and decision makers – already engaged – have invited us to sit and dialogue. This is what we planned for.

Participants were instructed about the history and design of the irrigation system, how it works, its cultural impact, and the changes endured by the neighboring rural landscape. Oversize words in environmentally-sensitive foam were “sprinkled” along the route to underline key questions concerning both the system and the proposed project: WHAT? WHERE? HOW? WHY? WHEN?

Elements that required a “footnote” from the interpreters were highlighted with an asterisk.

Insertion of texts within the landscape owes much to the reinterpretation of precedents: Robert Smithson’s site-specific works; Jenny Holzer’s linkage of words to movement; Robert Indiana’s supersized treatment of typeface; as well as Dieter Kienast’s joint validation of typographic strokes and counters, using the latter as windows unto the landscape.

Professionals, academics, architecture and landscape architecture students – as well as volunteers – guided tours along the canal to make visitors aware of the potential of these trails from which the Island’s natural landscape and its early-20th century industrial heritage can be enjoyed.

The local Architects and Landscape Architects Foundation funded the pilot project, which included a day dedicated to K-12 schools within the canal region. Participants were requested to fill an assessment form, freely formatted to accommodate ideas, concerns, and recommendations. Upon completing the forms, each person received an informative brochure, specially designed to urge everyone to action.

All photography by Gus Pantell.

[flashvideo file=http://blog.estudiointerlinea.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/Canales.flv width="400" height="266" /]

PROJECT CREDITS

Executed with the support of the Foundation for the Association of Architecture and Landscape Architecture of Puerto Rico and the collaboration of the county of Isabela, the Energy Authority (AEE) and the School of Landscape Architecture at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico.

Concept and Project Design Jorge Rigau FAIA, Architects Project Coordination Miguel Ortíz Graphic Design Alberto Rigau, Estudio Interlínea Archaeological Consultant Gus Pantell Construction and Renovation Consultant Beatriz del Cueto Landscape Consultant Maria Isabel Rodríguez

Missing pictures

Movie subtitles, intended to facilitate the enjoyment of foreign films, often hinder more than help the purported aesthetic experience. Who decides on the type, placement, and contents of these words on the big screen? Most people have no idea, and those who do it don’t seem to either.

Cynthia Joyce (“Why do movie subtitles stink?”) brings up the example of a former dentist who has translated hundreds of American movies for Latin American distribution, including “Star Wars”. Responsible for how millions of Hispanics understand films, Dr. Luis M. Rodriguez argues he rarely receives a copy of the film to be translated. Instead, he is handed a “spotting list” telling him the time and number of frames awarded for each subtitle. He is given only one week to deliver.

No wonder there are no credits for these “traduttori, traditori” at the end footage, and yet you have never heard of angry translators demanding otherwise. Are they embarrassed for granting a shorthand version of the original dialogue expounded on the screen? Ask about it to bilingual speakers, who often laugh at mistakes and literal translations that go unnoticed by movie distributors.

To add insult to injury, the language intrusion often becomes a visual one.

When subtitles claim more than one line in the small screens at Fine Arts Cinema, they cover almost a third of the frame. Maybe that is why we pay $6 here for a movie ticket, instead of $9, the new Mainland standard… Are we only paying for the 2/3 of the screen we actually see? Think how much better “The Motorcycle Diaries” could be have been, if we had been allowed to enjoy the expansive landscape cinematography.

Lacking any relationship to the quality and intent of a film, subtitles may interfere with its message or mood. In “Open Water”, one of the final scenes takes place in complete darkness, but the intended blackout effect is never fulfilled since the screen is infested by tall white Futura (maybe quirky Avant Garde) Bold subtitles. “The Blair Witch Project” was afflicted by the same curse.

Subtitle sizes are increasing. Maybe we are not supposed to notice and support those for whom they are being made “easier to read”. But bigger does not mean more legible, for larger sizes take longer to read. And when subtitles take up more space, most end in the screen’s most neutral and non-stimulating area, low at dead center.

Subtitles have a rhythm of their own and call for attention. There is no need for making them bigger or bolder. Even in movies of one’s own language, the eyes are directed to them. Why haven’t we encouraged caption-like subtitles, running at the bottom of the frame and non-interfering with the moving image? Photographers have argued and complained for years about running text getting in the way of image and meaning. Maybe the Movie Industry has been missing the picture, having yet things to learn from Photography.

Landscape Muggers

What USA publicists call a junior page advertisement is known in Puerto Rico, more informally, as a “robapágina”, or page mugger. Reference to the “illegality” of a fake full-page has less to do with the crime problems currently affecting the island than with the aggressiveness that permeates most advertising endeavors all over the world.

A case in point: Newspaper A1 design vis-a-vis front page advertising.

Publication designers love control over their work. Even though, customarily, one must follow lay out standards – to a certain extent – the designer more than often controls colors, typographic treatments, and image choice. To his/her dislike, there is one aspect of everyday work that, on most occasions, is labeled as hands-off: the advertising.

Lack of advertising control, if it’s any consolation, extends beyond the publication realm. Recently, a restaurant within my neighborhood sold some of its parking space to a billboard company. The new advertisement was placed above the restaurant’s sign; it’s twice its size, boasts excessive illumination, and challenges the sky boldly. Did the restaurant’s owner ever consider the billboard’s dwarfing effect? Did he realize clients would be confused by the looted landscape? Did he care? Does anyone care?

This situation is echoed in publications as well. Over the fold advertisements on A1 are, more and more, challenging the hierarchical space where once the masthead reigned supreme. With no control over the design and content of these printed billboards, the nameplate’s landscape is now being diminished by flashy, un-related colors, mirror typography, effect-ridden images, and non-editorial messages.

Publishers will argue these advertisements provide necessary revenue and, as such, it is no longer an option to do without them. But if, in fact, we have to do with them, why not exert more control over them? Both in Europe and the USA, key publications have paved the way for the integration of word, image, and page structure, regardless of editorial or commercial purpose.

Madison Avenue’s Mad Magazine and Barcelona’s design journal ARDI are to be thanked for saying NO! to uninspired publicists. Anyone wanting to advertise in their pages has to consciously address the aesthetics, style, and visual standards of the publications. Where did their efforts lead to? Undiminished sponsors and award-winning ads. If more than one continent has already acknowledged the values of fully integrated graphic languages, why can’t more of us defend the full command of the graphic landscape to which we are entitled?