The built, unbuilt and the unbuildable – Ex Hacienda de Cortez, Cuernavaca

Dec 13. 20140

Built in the 1570´s for a short use of Hernan Cortez in Cuernavaca.. Ex Hacienda de Cortez got me wondering about many questions about the built, unbuilt and the unbuildable.. similar questions pondered upon by Robert Harrison in his essays on ruins.

What happened here is quite magical. Man built something. Nature unbuilt it. What exists today is simply unbuildable. The architecture, and landscape coexist as art, unintended but deeply thought provoking.

Over time nature has trimmed the original functional aspirations and added some of its own, in such a way that the functional aspirations of the space today surpasses the original manifold.

Here are the crude questions that came up.. maybe you can help me refine it..

1. Are there ways of imagining and designing the built for the unbuilt and the unbuildable?

2. Why do we formally design without thinking about the unbuilt?

3. Do we do that by building something that is built to last? if so, then would anything built to last be unbuilt and finally unbuildable?

4. If functional and aesthetic aspirations of architecture continue to change and thrive when nature takes over the built.. architecture can live immortally.

Maybe, mortals alone can not build something that can be immortal.