Is This the RIGHT thing to do?

   

    Which holds more sway?  Legality or Righteousness?    Should one matter more than the other or should there be a balance between them?  What happens if one is in the wrong?  Does that mean someone can override and disregard that legality?  The video about doing architecture illegally for the people in Spain takes this idea to the immediate surrounding.  I think what they are doing is important and helpful for the community.  The way they set up the video was a good way to set the stage.  Showing a bank that was almost done being built, while housing projects were still in the process that started over a year ago.  It is sad to see some the priorities when it comes to politics.  This is also seen in the other video about "the Architecture of Violence".  How ground has been divided up and gated off from people.  

    Politics have a strong stance in architecture, even though they should not.  Architecture is a service field.  Architects are supposed to design and create for the people of the city or place the project is going in.  The bank building from "Guerrilla architecture." might look nice, but it might not mean a whole lot if there are no people to use it.  It will just become a shell of its intended use.  

    On the other hand "Guerilla Architecture" is illegal in that country and so I was wondering if what they designed and built would be allowed to stay standing.  That question was answered at the end of the video when they told the audience that the circus compound was dismantled by the government.  I think what they were doing within the community was helpful, but at the same time illegal.  I am not going on to say that what they did was wrong or right.  However I think that group should have also tried to work more with the government to show how it could change and give them the option.  There could have been a chance of change and the possibility the government would have left them alone as long as they at least notified them of the projects.  The actions of the group in the video were like the saying:  It is easier to ask for forgiveness, than for permission.  The only downside is that when they did not ask for permission it opened them up for punishment that was legal based on the current government's rules.  

    This is similar to the "Architecture of Violence" video.  The government had made it difficult to move safely between areas of a city/architecture, creating a prison or quarantined areas connected by checkpoints.  A city that does not allow for efficient and free circulation throughout it is more like a prison than a public space.  And even if you are free to move through it, does not mean it is safe to.  Wars change the built landscape as well as threaten lives.   It carves paths into cities and create layers of architecture through the times.  Would it be right to show those layers?  Should a city that is destroyed by war be leveled and built from scratch or should a city express and show its scars from a war?