En tan solo un año, la carrera como Dean de Alejandro Zaera-Polo quedaba truncada por unas serias acusaciones de las que ahora se conocen algunas cartas, como la de Rem Koolhaas, la aclaración de Zaera y la escueta respuesta de la Universidad de Princeton. El debate era tan sumamente grave que casi nadie lo entendía o simplemente pasaba como tema desconocido. Nadie sabía o quería hablar del tema hasta que se han hecho públicos los siguientes comunicados y correos.
La dimisión, que fue solicitada por Christopher Eisgruber, presidente de la Universidad, fue consecuencia de la eliminación de Zaera-Polo de citas de su contribución a la sección de "Fachada" en la exposición Elements of Architecture de la Bienal de Arquitectura de Venecia 2014.
Reivindicando los rumores de ser "manifiestamente falso" Zaera-Polo ha emitido una "declaración aclaratoria" que describe que el propósito de su texto para la Bienal era ser polémico, y no académico, por lo que no violó "ninguna norma moral, ética o de otra índole aplicables". También se ha presentado un correo electrónico de apoyo a Zaera-Polo enviado por Rem Koolhaas, como director de la Bienal, dirigido a Eisgruber tres días antes de la renuncia, denunciando la no existencia de irregularidad.
La carta de Koolhaas fue dada a conocer el domingo por Zaera-Polo, como parte de un esfuerzo por contrarrestar los rumores "demostrablemente falsos" de que los textos que escribió para la bienal contenían material robado.
La carta fue publicada en la web, tanto de Princeton (pero ya se ha eliminado) como en la web de Zaera-Polo como parte de una "declaración aclaratoria" en la que el arquitecto español explicó los antecedentes de su renuncia, que según dijo fue solicitada por Eisgruber.
A continuación los tres textos conocidos.-
El correo electrónico de Rem Koolhaas fue enviado tres días antes de que el arquitecto español Zaera-Polo renunciase como decano de la escuela de arquitectura de Princeton en medio de rumores de que sus textos, preparados para la sección "Fachada" de la exposición Elementos de Arquitectura en la Bienal y el catálogo que la acompañaba, contenían material plagiado.
Koolhaas explicaba que los textos fueron escritos para ser accesibles al público en general y por lo tanto no era necesario que contuvieran las citas que se espera de un trabajo académico.
[Dada la gravedad de las afirmaciones, y respuestas, hemos preferido dejar los textos en la lengua en que fueron escritos]
A continuación, el texto del correo electrónico de Rem Koolhaas al Presidente de la Princeton University Christopher Eisgruber, enviado el 30 de septiembre de 2014.-
Estimado Presidente Eisgruber,
As overall curator of the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, I invited a number of intellectuals to collaborate on one of its core exhibitions, Elements of Architecture. Alejandro Zaera Polo was the obvious choice for the Facade, given his outstanding and original body of research and published writing on this element. I invited him to make a major contribution both the the catalogue and to the exhibition, which he fulfilled to our satisfaction and to the satisfaction of the publisher, Marsilo, and the authorities of the Biennale.
The point from the beginning was to make a publication accessible to any reader. The catalogue is intended as a polemic, not an academic document. Zaera Polo also explicitly announced this at the beginning of his contribution. As such, Princeton's expectation of citations for Alejandro's text - which was conceived, with us, as a polemical tale full of speculation - seems a category error.
However, as has always been intended, the catalogue will be followed in the near future by a second edition, under a different publisher, in which we will have the opportunity to establish the traditional level of academic standard for all contributions.
As a curator of the Biennale, with my name as the lead on the text, I am comfortable with the material as published.
Regards,
Rem Koolhaas
Curator Venice Biennale 2014
Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design, Harvard University
Y ahora a continuación, la declaración aclaratoria de Zaera-Polo
A quien pueda interesar,
I am making the following statement in order to finally clarify the reasons for my sudden resignation from the Post of Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University on October 30 2014. This is now imperative not just in respect to the rumors spread on the internet about plagiarism and disagreement with the direction in respect to my work on the Venice Biennale 2014, which are demonstrably false, but to address even worse rumors caused by the abruptness of my resignation. The abrupt and unexplained timing of my resignation has produced an endless stream of sometimes grotesque rumors. I am issuing this statement to address those rumors for once and for all.
My sudden departure as Dean was requested by President Eisgruber following my acknowledgement that I had removed all citations from my contribution to the publication accompanying the Exhibition Elements of Architecture at the Venice Biennale 2014.
While I acknowledge that my actions were unorthodox in an academic setting, I do not believe that I have breached any moral, ethical, or other applicable standards. I would like here to describe factually my actions in respect to the Venice Biennale Exhibition and Publication, and provide some evidence which I believe to be clarifying in this respect.
1. I acted in the context of a non-academic engagement, with the agreement of the overall author and the chief editor of the publication, and following the polemical — rather than academic — intent of the project. I enclose the letters sent by Rem Koolhaas, Overall Curator of the 2014 Venice Biennale and James Westcott, Chief Editor of the Elements of Architecture Publication, sent to President Eisgruber on September 30th, in this respect. (09.30.14RK to CE.pdf and 09.30.14JW to CE.pdf). The purpose of removing the citations was to diminish the academic tone of the text and write it into a more casual narrative to make it more accessible for the general public.
2. The Biennale publication was to be followed by a freestanding book, to be published imminently by Taschen, which will meet all the academic standards in terms of acknowledgement of sources and otherwise. All sources of the text would be fully acknowledged in the final version.
3. I did include in the publication for the Biennale a disclaimer, which explicitly states the non-academic nature of the document, its speculative and polemic intent, and its non-suitability as a source:
“This is not an academic paper, but a historical speculation, a technological fiction not suitable as an exhaustive source but as a trigger of ideas in which we firmly believe. It is not thoroughly researched nor peer-reviewed. It is partial, opinionated, and inexact. But we hope it will fertilize many minds, spin off different forms of scholarship, and originate a new form of thinking about facades. It is, in short, a standard type of architectural writing, aimed at the construction of a new reality, rather at the faithful reproduction of a pre-existing one.”
While compiling the information for the text and writing it into a narrative, I did incur inadvertently in a few instances of paraphrasis, which would have required citation if they were to meet strict academic standards. In three of these cases, the published text did not follow our approved version, because of a misunderstanding with the publishers. The actual list of the instances included in the published document is enclosed here in a detailed document where the exact nature of the information sourced can be accessed. (instances of paraphrased unacknowledged sources.pdf) This document demonstrates that the sources were used only for factual information which is easily available from multiple sources on internet. I believe their paraphrastic structure is entirely irrelevant to the content and meaning of the text.
I hope that this factual evidence of the circumstances surrounding my resignation as Dean of the School of Architecture in order to dispel at once the absurd rumors which have been maliciously circulated.
Unlike other academic disciplines, design is a synthetic practice. the design education institutions which are succeeding to affect the real are already engaging with technical innovation, entrepreneurship and the public, and developing protocols which are closer to those used in a research team or a production office than to a conventional academic tutoring. In the field of architecture, the development of hybrid structures between practice, research and education constitute an increasingly successful model of education for architects. I have been teaching along these lines for over 20 years, and many of my former students and collaborators are now friends and colleagues, in the profession and the academia. I believe that the best education today is delivered through research and a direct engagement with the outside —with the industry, the community or the public at large— rather than through a retreat into a self-referential system which does not take into account the broader audiences that make the work significant and enable individuals to develop a truly transformative practice. In this spirit, I look forward to continue to sustain a parallel academic practice in the future, as a full member of the faculty of the School of Architecture in Princeton University.
Sincerely,
Alejandro Zaera-Polo
Respuesta de Princeton a la declaración aclaratoria de Zaera-Polo
While we normally do not comment on personnel matters, we do need to point out that Professor Zaero-Polo’s statement regarding the circumstances surrounding his resignation as dean of the School of Architecture is inaccurate and incomplete. He was asked to step down in large measure because of statements he made in writing that indicated he was unfamiliar with the University’s policies on plagiarism and that he may have directed his collaborators to breach the rules of the University.
