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[English]
I got my first real sense of what architecture was all about from Javier Carvajal, during my fourth year at university. The faculty was really just starting to take off then, but it was all very provincial. The lecturers meant well, and some of the more technical subjects were quite well taught, but it was all rather amateurish. There was no way you could make mistakes, or take risks. Javier Carvajal was the first one person who talked to us about risky architecture, warts and all. He was the first to mention the quest, the dream and the possibility of mistakes as well. He was able to transmit convey that dream of architecture to us.
When I finished my studies, I worked as an assistant to Rafael Echaide for three years, until he died. He taught me the trade, and how to use reason as a vehicle that goes beyond the merely practical.
Echaide had one of the best libraries of architecture, including books from all over the world: from Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia and as well as Spain as well. And I had access to all of it. There were drawings and books whichbooks that had the most exquisite appreciation of detail. Echaide had an exceptional feel for materials, but a quite austere one at that: he was like a monk, very timid, difficult to get a word out of. Through him I discovered the architects who have influenced me most, the Scandinavians like Arne Jacobsen, the German architects, and an appreciation for people like Alejandro De la Sota etc.
That was in the early eighties, when hardly anybody in Pamplona was interested in architecture. Things are different nowadays. Most of the major institutions in the area are looking for a certain quality in towns and buildings.
Pamplona is in the region of Navarre, a small place where we all know one another, and one way or another, I have always had access to the key people and places. I have always attempted to give them a sense of the importance of architecture in a city, how it can respond to the needs of society. That interest in architecture is only now beginning to manifest itself, but it has been a long haul. The School of Architecture in Pamplona began to change about eight to ten years ago when the younger architects, who had once studied there, began to take over. There was a change of guard.
Although we are both from the same region, I have never worked with Rafael Moneo, nor have I studied under him, and yet we have always maintained a very close correspondence, which is based upon mutual respect and friendship.
I am not concerned with finding a style, or in being identified with certain characteristics, and I think one could say that about us both. More than an identity, I attempt to give a kind of unity to the way I resolve problems or work on projects. I aim to create projects that look quite different, but deep down they deal with problems whichproblems that are common to them all,. Tthese can be identified and they confer unity to the specific, but distinct, end results. I am not a ‘signature’ architect, but I believe that all of my work does present a certain sense of unity, although I might be mistaken others may disagree.
An architect can get himself easily recognised by controlling or repeating three or four gestures/mannerisms motifs. But to me, that type of architecture is more concerned with form than content.
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