CARLOTA
PEDERSEN
MADERO
COMPUTER KNOWLEDGE
Autocad – Advanced
Adobe Photoshop – Advanced
Adobe Ilustrator – Intermediate
Sketch up – Advanced
Rhinoceros – Intermediate
Grasshopper – Basic
Microsoft Office – Intermediante
LANGUAGES
Spanish and French: Native
Danish and English: Advanced
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Email: [email protected]
Phone: + 54 9 11 6536 0255
Age: 25
Nationality: Danish
My name is Carlota Pedersen-Madero.
I am a Danish architect graduated from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. I have always lived in Argentina but spent long
periods in Denmark and France. My father is Danish and my mother is Argentine but both of them lived many years of
their life in European and Latino American countries.
My linguistic formation has always been plural as in my family three languages were spoken: French, Danish and
Spanish. From this childhood experience I have learned that languages involve different practices, different forms of
relationship and peculiar cultural artefacts.
Architecture has always been my vocation, it transcended from a career into a way of life as I enjoy dealing with every
architectural challenge.
During my academic studies I discovered different branches of architecture and design which aroused my interest,
particularly urbanism, landscape design and industrial design.
During two years, I worked as an assistant professor in “Introduction to contemporary architecture” and participated
in a project to study the inconsistencies of urban structure of Buenos Aires.
At 22 years old I started being an entrepreneur, by building my own studio and two houses, as well as making the
project of another one. I also remodeled four apartments and made the design of two restaurants.
I have personally participated with my own hands in the building of two houses for the ONG (Non Governmental
Organization) “Un Techo para mi país” (A dwelling-house for my country) and organized a series of conferences on
architecture and its relations with literature, city, art and history.
I understand that there is a high competition to apply to your office. Notwithstanding I am very interested in having
an opportunity to work in your firm, for which I am ready to give the best of my efforts.
I am looking forward to your kind answer to my application.
Sincerely yours,
Carlota Pedersen-Madero
My grandparents, Beba and Ricardo Piglia, have spent a large part of their lives living in two countries. For six months
of the year, they would reside Buenos Aires and for the other six months they would be in Princeton, New Jersey, where
Ricardo taught Latin American Literature. When he retired from his teaching position a few years ago, Ricardo thought
he should not abandon his habit of living between two homes situated in such different surroundings.
With Princeton in mind, I thought that I had to find them a plot far from Buenos Aires to spend a good part of their year.
The search lasted two years. Ricardo was always remembering his childhood in Adrogué, a luscious suburban neighborhood, and Mar del Plata, a city next to the sea. I finally found the plot, located in Uruguay in Punta Colorada, right in the
middle of a forest sprawling along the sea.
From that moment on I began to see my grandparents under a different light. I observed their ways, their uses of space,
and I would listen to their comments and complaints about places, objects, and practices that would please them or
annoy them.
My plan had to render Ricardo’s need of solitude for his writing activity, as well as Beba’s need of a social life surrounded by youths busied with artistic endeavors. For instance, I noticed that Ricardo had organized his two studios in the
same way and that Beba was always working in places that were not planned for her use. To observe my grandparents
as an ambushed hunter was a very interesting experience.
CASA
PIGLIA-EGUÍA
At that moment, I was twenty-two years old and was halfway through my academic education. Thus, I invited to the
project an architect that I consider as my most inspiring teacher. For him the immediate surrounding of the house, the
vegetation and the light were essential. The house coloring would be that of the rocks around the construction.
‘This house’ Ricardo said ‘is the image of my own head’.
I am a writer and the idea of having a summer house that could also serve as a place for working was fully accomplished.
When I saw it for the first time I had the feeling that the ideal notion of the place that I had previously conceived in my
mind had been perfectly captured.
This unique space (placed in the park among trees) has been used with extreme elegance and intelligence. And most
important, as soon as my wife and I installed ourselves in the house we had the impression of having lived there for
all our life. We immediately moved around in a very natural way. It was a wonderful experience of beauty, confort and
functionality.
With great enthusiasm and joy, I must say that this perfect place gave us the opportunity of passing a part of the year
out of the city in a house that we had long time imagined and which realization exceded our expectations.
We are very grateful to Carlota Pedersen who understood with great sensitivity and brightness our deepest hopes and
made this project possible.
Ricardo Piglia.
Project designed for Francisco Pachelo.
The investor in this project is a young business man.
CASA
PACHELO
Francisco bought a plot in a large country club, forecasting that the price on the property would rise. His initial idea was
to build a modest house and to sell it immediately. As the project advanced, however, Francisco became more and more
enthusiastic about it and planned to inhabit the house for a couple of years. Finally, the project was approved, but it was
suspended for lack of funds.
Delivery Gourmet was a take-away and delivery chain.
BRØD
The owners of this small chain thought that both the looks of their businesses and the name of the enterprise were
inappropriate to the image they wanted to convey. To re-do the businesses I chose the northern European look, strongly
present in my mind. It seemed to me the most pertinent alternative because of its lack of ornament and discretion.
I chose a word that would have a letter that deviates from the Latin alphabet: Brød, the term for bread.
We could propose a hypothesis according to which
architecture must have three forms of memory.
Architectural memory of the designer. Memory of
the place with its characteristics, morphology
and history. Social cultural memory, “if one can only
say what one can see, one can only see what is said.”
From what perspective we think the surroundings
when we design?.
Shouldn’t a building say “I am as you see me, and
I belong to this place.”
The surveillance that favors the feeling of persecution
pleases at the same time narcissism and pushes for
exhibitionism.
We are in a culture where
originality is associated
to private property.
If we think that knowledge has always been
associated with power, then we can think that seeing
is knowledge and knowledge is power. Therefore we
can conclude that seeing is power but if seeing does
not belong to just one person and then everybody
sees everybody, could seeing still be power? Or is it
only a condition?
If all that is real is also visible what does not have an
image becomes rumor.
Being seen leads to think that there is an Other that
wants to see and for whom seeing is pleasure:
reality is paranoid.
How do we explain a work of architecture?
If I only can say what I see,
I can only see what is said.
Who is the owner of the form? Can we adjudicate a
form to a person?
There are images that condensate an intense feeing,
these images mutate, they change, but they last
throughout the centuries.
Following a civic and community tradition all public
spaces are seen positively .
Public spaces have different energies and different
meanings in different cultures
Does the public space last without events?
Is a desolated park a public space?
THOUGHTS
It is enough to listen to what a person says when she
says that she is watched constantly, that she is observed from all angles, that the all world has its eyes
on her. We can pity her torture, but we can also say to
ourselves ‘Who does she think she is?’
RESEARCH
ON LIGHT
Caustics, reflections and shadows.
I always liked to experiment with matter in relation to light. How light can completely change the form of things,
how different substances and textures affect the light.
RESEARCH
ON ANOMALIES IN
THE URBAN PLANNING
I was invited to join a research project directed by Arch. Liliana Calzon (UBA)
We had to analyze why the urban structure changed at specific places. I had to work on the reasons that could explain
the strange form of a street near the Parque Las Heras. The information was scattered –as I found out- in two small
libraries, a city museum and the archives of the city. Here is what I found.
PRACTICE
WITH PHOTOSHOP
Flooding area in urban zone of Buenos Aires.
Residential housing for flooding area with common spaces,
provided with equipment for local fairs and market .
Exercise on how will the city look like from the countryside
in 100 years.
Exercise on how will the city look like from the countryside
in 100 years.
MAPPING
THE UNMAPPABLE
1
2
1
A. Urban structure and topology DF topographic irregularity
does not allow an constant orthogonal structure. B. Green and
Blue spaces. Studing a specific site of Mexico DF, the predominance of built terrain over natural terrain becomes visible. C.
Lakes in the area of Mexico DF. D. Lakes in the north area of
the city of Buenos Aires. E. Parks in the area of Mexico DF. F.
Parks in the north area of the city of Buenos Aires. G. Gradual
extinction of Lake Texcoco begun in the 1500.
2
A. Tenochtitlan: Composition and conformation of the Aztec Empire.
The geography of Tenochtitlan was composed of four islands. The
growth of the city is progressive and organized. Tenochtitlan grows in
rectangular modules called “ Chinampas”. They maintain between the
“Chinampas” Canals which were used as a way of transport. B. Invisible traces. Tenochtitlan is not visible today,traces were buried in the
rubble of a violet conquest. The metro is the contemporary representation of invisible traces that also hides in the depths of DF. Could this
be the contact with those traces of the past?
3
4
4
A. Ucronias. What would have happened ir Hernan Cortes had never
discovered Mexico? What would it be like if Lake Texcoco still existed?
How would it be if they had kept the Canals? What if the pyramids of
Tenochtitlan would still exist, would they be ruins or would they be a
public space? B. Lake Texcoco
ATELIERS
Studios and Art Galleries at the Neighborhood of Villa Urquiza.
The assigned task required four studios for artists and a gallery where they could show their works.
MORPHOLOGY
The assigned task was based on an existing building, in this case the church located in the three crossing streets of
Alvar Aalto. We had to choose a theme and a material; we had to elaborate a catalogue that addressed some repeated
patterns. I selected the structure and its meeting segments, particularly their articulation.
MUSEUM
Museum of Statues at the District of Villa Urquiza, located at the Ex AU 3.
The organizing idea conceives this not as an enclosed space, but as meandering open walkway populated with statues.
The assigned task was to locate an urban district in the center of Buenos Aires and to make a proposal to revitalize a
scarcely used area.
URBAN PLANNING
In this case we encountered many abandoned houses, a reason for which we planned many public programs such as
museums, cultural centers and parks. The elaboration of this project took place during the National Independence
Bicentenary, an event that lends its name to the main park.
CULTURAL CENTER
Cultural Center Located in the District of Palermo
This building has two constructions, one for a theater and the other for a museum with two galleries. These two
buildings are connected underground. The entrance to the building runs though a public park that is also used
to display many statues.
PAVILION
A pavilion for expositions and the design for a park located in the neighborhood of La Boca facing the river.
The pavilion was conceived as part of the park promenade and a ramp allows its use as a vantage point
facing the River Plate.