Politicians caught on camera say the darndest things. Like – if you’re Esperanza Aguirre, President of Madrid – that architects “should be killed.”
The Politician was unknowingly recorded while speaking with the Mayor of Valdemaqueda, a municipality of Madrid, about their town hall. The building, known as Casa Consistorial de Valdemaqueda (1998), designed by Paredes Pedrosa, was an award-winner at the Spanish Biennale of 1999. Their conversation (translated by yours truly) went as follows:
Mayor: The town hall? Oh, that thing. Well, it’s gotten prizes, president. Architecture prizes.
Esperanza Aguirre: That’s the only positive thing that’s come from the Crisis, that that’s all over. I have never seen anything uglier.
Mayor: You don’t like it?
Esperanza Aguirre: How could I like it, hidden at the end of a plaza like this!
Mayor: Well, because they’re the architects of the Community.
Esperanza Aguirre: Well, they should be killed.
Mayor: They’ve gotten awards.
Esperanza Aguirre: Mario, it’s so stupid (addressing a person next to her). Do you know why we should have the death penalty? I dislike architects because their crimes last longer than their own own lives. They die and leave us with this.
Find out what Ms. Aguirre has had to say for herself since, and take a peek at the original video footage after the break …