ithin the fundamental purposes of the university is not only the education of human-ists, scientists, and professionals that succeed academically and have ethical and civic values, responsibility and social solidarity. It is also that of preserving, enhancing, and transmitting universal culture with a critical and creative sense, permanently preserving the historic, scien-tific, technological, cultural and artistic heritage of humanity, which in turn will contribute to human development and the holistic training of free-thinking individuals.
The knowledge generated through scientific research is one of the reasons that reinforce the need for a university and it provides fertile ground for the challenge of human progress. Nevertheless, on each achievement, on each progress that is attained as a product of arduous and fruitful scientific work, there is an abundant source of inspiration for the artist. Thus, both elements, science and art, come together in the creation of knowledge with the methodolog-ical rigor of science and the art that embellishes it with its enviable praise propagates it and even dignifies it.
It is a pleasure for the Santa Maria Catholic University to present this book titled “Poetics of an inhabited world”, written by two of our most notable professors with prolific scientific and artistic production and with national and international trajectory. The architects Gonzalo Ríos Vizcarra y Carlos Zeballos Velarde go beyond the usual university writings and enter, as the authors mention themselves, a visual journey where the reader concludes that the “Poetics of inhabiting” is a latent possibility that comes to fruition on a daily basis in different parts of the world.
For Hölderlin, inhabiting is the “being” of a man, and the poetic is the act of inhabiting in an essential way. Poetry is not an ornament of existence; poetry and existence are one of the same. Poetry is an esoteric method of far reach in the search of the essential, on the ultimate reality of the human experience, a method that is subjective, particular to each man.
To understand the essence of this book we must analyze the professional education of the authors, and according to an analysis by Claudia Davila M. in an interesting review about Architecture and Humanities, for architects it is important to reflect about contemporary ar-chitecture and the social commitment that is acquired when working with habitable space. Architecture understands space not as a geometric or physical material, but as a constitutive element of the world. It has the power to integrate man, achieving his permanence and al-lowing him to create space, since “when Heidegger talks about space, he thinks primarily in a space understood in existential and not physical terms, in other words, it deals with a vital, pragmatic, significant, and public space that refers to the realm of action where daily activities take place.” (Ibidem). As architecture understands man and his spiritual gratification as its main objective, it generates objects that allow it to achieve a formal sensibility by which each of the journeys become enjoyable experiences and find their acceptance by the man of the present and future eras. Therefore, the artistic component in its many expressions is essential for the work of an architect.
It is our hope that this book becomes a space in which the imagination of the reader soars and that it extracts from him his most profound artistic and poetic essence. Furthermore, that in the course of reading the seventy texts, you have a pleasant experience that nourishes your spirit.