Barozzi - Veiga: Building the Void

All photos: Philharmonic Hall, Szczecin, Poland  © Mariela Apollonio

I am happy to claim the cover of this month's Architectural Record with a feature on the Barcelona-based studio of Barozzi - Veiga, chosen for the annual Design Vanguard issue (link).

Another Spaniard featured in the issue is Andrés Jaque, who currently teaches at Princeton. His article can be found here.

Fabrizio Barozzi is Italian, and studied at the Venice School of Architecture before finding himself in Seville on an Erasmus scholarship. That's where he met Alberto Veiga, originally from Galicia, who studied architecture in Pamplona.

"To convey the spirit of these quiet volumes for their competition entries, Barozzi and Veiga spend months preparing exquisite black-and-white renderings, seeking to capture every nuance of light, shadow, texture, scale, and density of mass."

Barozzi / Veiga
Design Vanguard
Architectural Record, December, 2014
Cover

More blog entries on Barozzi Veiga

Barrozi Veiga: A Question of Character
Jan. 17, 2017  

New Kids on the Block: Estudio Barozzi Veiga
Based on in interview in The Architectural Review
May 1, 2013 

Patricia Meneses in San Luis Potosi

For anyone who happens to be nearby, I reproduce the invitation to the show of Patricia Meneses' work at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Meneses was featured in Architectural Record's Design Vanguard issue in 2010, together with her former partner Iván Juárez. I wrote an introduction for this show in Spanish, which I reproduce below.

arquitecturas corpóreas

studio patricia meneses

opening reception
19.12.2013  19:30h
19.12.2013 - 23.02.2014

contemporary art museum
morelos 235, historical center san luis potosí,    m e x i c o

www.macsanluispotosí.com
www.patriciameneses.com

"Patricia Meneses es arquitecta, pero su obra extiende los limites convencionales de la profesión. Trabaja principalmente sobre el encuentro entre el cuerpo humano y la naturaleza, trazando el territorio de mediación entre ambos que abarca dos temas fundamentales: la protección del cuerpo ante los elementos –con temas como el ropaje, el nido, el capullo, el cobertizo—, y la proyección del cuerpo y sus sentidos hacia el mundo natural –la proyección de la mirada, los caminos y sus puntos de parada, y los lugares de encuentro y asentamiento donde se construyen las relaciones más estables con un territorio, con el mundo animal que la habita y con las demas personas, abarcando la sociedad y sus propios encuentros—."

"En ésta zona intermediaria de mediación, el edificio, en su condición de objeto extraño introducido entre el cuerpo y la naturaleza, desaparece. Se difume en las varias tecnicas de la artesanía, otro territorio de encuentro entre el cuerpo y la naturaleza, que trata de la manipulación de materiales naturales con las manos. Las obras de Patricia Meneses se fabrican con hilos, cuerdas, ramas o materiales textiles, y con tecnicas como las de tejar, tensar, trenzar, hacer nudos, etc. (aunque a veces trabaja con materiales bastante sofisticados como el nylon o el metacrilato, según el encargo). Sus obras entonces parecen devolvernos a una condición primitiva e idilica, desprovista del ropaje tecnico de la civilización –recordamos la casa de Adán en el Paraíso–, cuando aún no hubo división entre lo artificial y lo natural, cuando todo pertenecía a un continuo, sin fisuras: la condición de la arquitectura antes de la arquitectura."

"Este territorio sin fisuras, sin el objeto extraño de la arquitectura metido entre el sujeto y el mundo que le envuelve, tiene paralelos con el territorio de actuacion de otros artistas contemporáneos, como por ejemplo Gordon Matta-Clark, donde se eliminan el pedestal, la galería de paredes blancas o el marco. Su obra no se destaca como objeto exceptional, ajeno al mundo cotidiano, sino que se emerge y se exhibe como parte de ese mundo, transformándolo en el proceso. Para éstas artistas, y para Patricia Meneses, su obra se convierte en una acción de transformar una parte del mundo cotidiano y la documentación de ésta acción efímera, su registro para fijarla como parte de la memoria colectiva cultural."

"Las fuentes creativas de Patricia Meneses se escapan de los limites convencionales de la arquitectura porque tiene sus origenes en una visión más amplia del mundo que precede su formación disciplinar. Tienen sus origenes en su niñez, cuando empieza a experimentar con la elaboración de su propia ropa, en ese momento de formación vital cuando el juego infantil se realiza como parte de la experiencia completa de la persona en sus primeros encuentros con el mundo a su alrededor, en el process de descubrir a si mismo, a su cuerpo y al mundo físico. Esta conexión con la fisicalidad de la existencia es tan central en su obra que el hecho de convirtirse hace poco en madre por la primera vez, y de llevar el cuerpo de un nuevo ser dentro de su propio cuerpo, parece como una obra más en su trayectoria creativa, como los nidos y capullos de otros proyectos."

"De estas observaciones podamos concluir, en forma de hipótesis, que la obra de Patricia Meneses aspira a fusionar el arte y la vida, recurriendo a ese viejo sueno utópico de muchos artistas revolucionarios del principio del siglo XX (Kandinsky, Mondrian, Le Corbusier...) de otorgar a la vida la misma condición que la obra de arte. Su objetivo se puede definir como la exploración o elaboración de un territorio de espiritualidad no-religiosa que da sentido a la vida, que le otorga su significado y dignidad en un mundo que, sin ella, amenaza a convertirse en nada más que una extensión anodina y sin cualidades, medida y controlada solamente por la técnica pura y desnuda de la razón. La obra de Patricia Meneses trata de cubrir la desnudez de ese mundo con el ropaje de su propia sensibilidad."

Two from Spain in Design Vanguard

Héctor Fernández Elorza, School of Cellular and Genetic Biology

Of the ten young architecture firms from around the world selected for Architectural Record's annual Design Vanguard issue this December, two are Spanish: Héctor Fernández Elorza and Grupo Aranea, led by the couple Francisco Leiva and Marta García Chico.

My article on Elorza begins:

"Using raw primary materials such as concrete and galvanized steel, simple forms, and an adroit manipulation of scale, the Madrid-based architect Héctor Fernández Elorza gives even small projects a monumental authority. Two horizontal glass slashes across the facade of his Faculty of Cellular and Genetic Biology at the University of Alcalá, for example, transform the rows of diminutive offices and seminar rooms behind them into a mysterious, iconic mask, while deeply projecting concrete planes shade the interior spaces from the western sun. At a larger scale, in the Valdefierro Park outside his native Zaragoza, long concrete retaining walls emerge from the hillside like the ruins of a lost city."

Grupo Aranea, The Braided Valley River Park, Elche

I write about the obsession with spiral movement in the work of the Alicante-based Grupo Aranea:

"Their first building, a library in San Vicente del Raspeig completed in 2004, is a continuous spiraling ramp. And both a seaside spa in Gijón and an Environmental Observatory in Alicante spin around themselves in open-ended loops. Their Lude House sits like a hard white seashell atop an existing building in the town of Cehegín, rippled inside and out by the curving, rising movement of its stair and double-height living area."

"Even a completely orthogonal design, a public high school in the village of Rafal, is organized around circular movement: a pink-carpeted bleacher opposite the entrance, which doubles as a wide stair and meeting point, kicks off a sequence of corridors and outdoor spaces that circle back over the entry and around a playing field to connect classroom pavilions."

 
Héctor Fernández López Architects 
Architectural Record, Design Vanguard, December 2013
Cover

Grupo Aranea
Architectural Record, Design Vanguard, December 2013

Photo top  © Montse Zamorano
Photo bottom © Jesús Granada

FRPO in Design Vanguard

Pablo Oriol, left; Fernando Rodríguerz, right. Photo: DC on MO House roof

The annual Design Vanguard issue of Architectural Record, dedicated to a 10 young firms worldwide, includes my article on the Madrid firm FRPO (Fernando Rodríguez and Pablo Oriol). Full text and pictures can be found here.

"Their [design] process often involves breaking the building program into its basic elements, which they then weave back together in surprising ways....  The method can produce very compact designs, such as the OS House on the coast of Cantabria, Spain (2005; with Marco González), or ones that spread like an amoeba between the trees (MO House, Madrid, 2012)."

MO House.Photo © Miguel De Guzmán, from the article

Access and Services Building, City of Justice, Madrid. Photo © Federico López

 

SO House. Photo © José Hevia

Design Vanguard:
FRPO (Rodríguez & Oriol Architecture)
Architectural Record, December 2012

Design Vanguard Call for Entries

Architectural Record is now accepting entries for its 2012 Design Vanguard competition. Entries are due on August 10, 2012 and the winners will be published in the December 2012 issue.

For more information, and to enter, click here.

Introducing Iñaqui Carnicero

In this month's Design Vanguard issue of Architectural Record (a US publication, by the way, for those who may confuse it with the British Architectural Review), I write on the Madrid architect Iñaqui Carnicero. See the article here.

"Despite Carnicero's declarations of formal modesty, his work is by no means without a strong architectonic character. Though he has returned to the basic principles of Modernism, he discovers rich new territories to explore using the familiar formulas of structural logic and functional form.

Also in the issue is the Barcelona-based studio Arquitecturia (Olga Felip and Josep Camps), which is reviewed by my good friend Jim Russell. See it here.

Design Vanguard is an annual roundup of 10 emerging studios from around the world. Anyone can submit portfolios, converting the issue into an open competition judged by the New York editors. For prospective candidates, my own observation over the years is that the luck of the draw favors architects with solid (not to say stolid) formal and professional skills, rather than some of the supposedly wilder stuff out there. I always try to send them a couple of troublemakers anyway.

Currently Record is open to submissions for the April Record Houses issue (deadline December 15th) and the Good Design is Good Business Awards (deadline January 15th). For more information and entries, the link is here.  


Design Vanguard: Iñaqui Carnicero Architecture
Architectural Record, December 2011, pages 60 - 63.

Top photo:
Iñaqui Carnicero, 1+1=1 House, Madrid. © Roland Halbe, Used with permission.

See the Design Vanguard tag below for previous years' selections from Spain.

Juárez and Meneses in Design Vanguard

In Architectural Record's Design Vanguard issue this December I write about Patricia Meneses and Iván Juárez, two architects from Mexico who began their careers together in Barcelona. See the story here, and an overview of the issue here. Juárez is now back in Mexico teaching and working, and Meneses has a growing practice in Barcelona.

Iván Juárez & Patricia Meneses
Architectural Record, December, 2010, p. 64-65. 

Photo: Tambabox, Tambacounda, Senegal, 2004.
© Iván Juárez

José María Sánchez García

For the past five or six years I've been proud to introduce a number of young Spanish architects in Architectural Record's annual Design Vanguard issue, which features architects of promise from around the world. This year we present the work of José María Sánchez García (Architectural Record, December 2009, pages 84 - 87).

His best-known design to date is a center for the development of rural sports in the Extremadura region. It is a circular building, 2,000 feet in circumference, that floats between the trees on a peninsula overlooking a reservoir (my photo).

I wrote another feature on the work for the Viennese magazine architektur.aktuell (in English and German):
Ein Kreis in den Bäunmen - A Circle in the Trees
Center for Recreational and Sports Activities, Guijo de Granadilla (Extremadura), Spain by José Sánchez García.
architektur.aktuell, 2009-09, September 15, 2009, pages 60 - 71.
Table of contents    Order issue


From the story:
Sánchez García declares that the greatest influence on his work has been Alberto Campo Baeza, who is in turn a disciple of the Madrid master Alejandro de la Sota (1913 - 1996). In its combination of Miesian austerity and rough but perfectly-controlled industrial materials, the Ring is true to De la Sota's restrained, functional and yet poetic design legacy. But at the same time, in its monumental, elementary geometry and scale it acts more like a work of land art than a conventional building, operating at a territorial scale. The experience of strolling around its circular roof terrace, in all its rural modesty, is comparable only to visions like Le Corbusier's megastructure for Algiers.

Other Spanish firms in past Design Vanguard issues:
Cadaval and Solà-Morales, Barcelona, 2008
Estudio Entresitio, Madrid 2007
BmasC Architects, Ávlia 2006
Antón García-Abril. Madrid 2004 (summary)