Congress in Pamplona

There's still time to sign up for the Architecture and Society Foundation's next Congress, Lo Común, to be held June 20-22 in Pamplona. Special grants are available to help students attend.

The Congress is directed by Luis Fernández-Galiano. Speakers include Foster, Moneo, Siza and Souto de Moura, as well as Peter Buchanan, Vasa Perović (Slovenia), Manuel Aires Mateus, Roger Diener, Dietmar Eberle, Anna Heringer (Austria), Solano Benítez (Paraguay), Patxi Mangado (Foundation founder) and others.

The proceedings cover the themes "Architecture and Shelter," "Architecture and Efficiency," and "Architecture and Pleasure."

To give  an idea of the calado of the event (Spanish metaphor meaning the draft of a ship), the congress will be kicked off with welcoming remarks  by Carlos Solchaga, former Socialist Minister of Economy and the President of the Foundation, and Ana Pastor, current Minister of Development, as well as the president of Navarra and mayor of Pamplona. Other active and former politicians are sprinkled through the proceedings.

Detailed information can be found here.

Moneo Museum in Pamplona

News brief
Another private project perks up the gloomy panorama in Spanish architecture. This time it's a museum designed by Rafael Moneo for the University of Navarra in Pamplona, which is owned and operated by the Opus Dei. Situated between the university campus and the edge of the city, the project will begin construction next month.

Among other collections, the museum will house a major donation of works by María Josefa Huarte, 87, member of the Huarte family, the great patrons of the arts in Spain in the 1950s and 60s, and the archives of José Ortiz-Echagüe, author of posed, painterly photographs on popular Spanish themes in the early 20th century. Huarte's donation, some 50 works, includes paintings by Tapies, Picasso, Rothko, Palazuelo, Jorge Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida.

Ortiz-Echagüe was one of the founders of the Spanish aviation industry in the 1920's, the first director of the state-owned SEAT automobile corporation in the 1950s, and the father of the noted 1950s architect César Ortiz-Echagüe, who built a series of memorable Miesian buildings for SEAT before cutting off his career and retiring at an early age into the Opus Dei.

Source: El País, October 19, 2011 and my own research.

Francisco Mangado & John Pawson in the Glossies

Two of my articles have come out in glossy Spanish magazines this past week. The first focuses on Francisco (Patxi) Mangado's Centro Hípico in Ultzama, built for his daughter, a champion horseback rider, and for the retreats and seminars organized by his Architecture and Society Foundation. The article appears in the weekend color supplement Fuera de Serie of the business newspaper Expansión (no web page version yet, but stay posted). The editors used the oversize newspaper format to great effect with a double-page spread of the Olympic-size covered training track. It was an opportunity to present Patxi's arguments for a more restrained and disciplined architecture to a wider audience.

Incluso en sus obras más pequeñas, se nota su sello característico, lo que él mismo describe como una cierta "mineralización" de sus formas. "La arquitectura más que nunca requiere un tiempo de reflexión que se traduce en densidad, en intensidad," mantiene, una actitud que contrapone a las "caligrafías superficiales" que ve en las obras de muchos arquitectos de moda. Lo que Mangado está buscando, y lo que encontramos en el Valle de Ultzama, entre las líneas de los robles y el río, es una arquitectura intemporal, sin fecha de caducidad. 

The second article is a brief introduction to John Pawson in the November issue of Gentleman, which you can still find on Spanish newsstands. Pawson has a show, Plain Space, at London's Design Museum through January, that is accompanied by a new monograph by Phaidon.

"Es muy complicado hacer que algo parezca sencillo." John Pawson

Minimalismo al servicio de la hípica
Ultzama Equestrian Center by Francisco Mangado.
Fuera de Serie, No. 304, Expansión, October 29, 2010m pages 18 -20.

El arquitecto nómada
Introduction to John Pawson interview
Genleman 79, November 2010, pages 68 - 72.


Photo 1:
Centro Hípico, Ultzama by Francisco Mangado
© Pedro Pegenaute

Photo 2:
John Pawson, Ceramic Goblet 
Available in the Design Museum gift shop.