00:00:07.840 --> 00:00:10.000
- Does the camera
have a stabilizer?

00:00:10.040 --> 00:00:11.200
- No...

00:00:11.240 --> 00:00:15.520
Well, it's going to freak you
out, the place we are going to,

00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:19.720
you'll tell me in
a little while.

00:01:00.520 --> 00:01:02.600
I am very interested in it.

00:01:02.640 --> 00:01:07.640
This is precisely the architecture
that I'm interested in photographing

00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:10.440
and I'm interested
in documenting.

00:01:10.480 --> 00:01:16.160
It is an architecture that
probably will never enter

00:01:16.160 --> 00:01:20.320
the handbooks of
architecture history.

00:01:20.360 --> 00:01:24.480
No one, no architect can
be interested in this.

00:01:27.840 --> 00:01:31.600
In Spain during the
long era of Francoism

00:01:31.640 --> 00:01:36.400
there were different periods, even
different political affiliations,

00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:40.440
and also a different
presence of architecture.

00:01:40.520 --> 00:01:42.480
Even different national styles.

00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:44.280
Perhaps the most
significant thing

00:01:44.320 --> 00:01:46.880
is that modernity does
not begin with democracy,

00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:51.800
but that the seeds of that modernity
already existed in Francoism.

00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:08.880
We think that totalitarian
regimes produced classicism

00:02:08.920 --> 00:02:10.440
and that is not entirely true.

00:02:10.480 --> 00:02:13.040
Italian fascism was modern,
we forget about that.

00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:17.120
That Italian rationalism,
originally fascist,

00:02:17.160 --> 00:02:19.560
Cabrero brings and
incorporates it,

00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:23.880
and makes a building that is probably
the most important of the decade.

00:02:31.880 --> 00:02:36.200
Finally, all these seeds of
renewal crystallized in the 60s,

00:02:36.240 --> 00:02:37.920
as in the case of
Torres Blancas,

00:02:37.960 --> 00:02:43.000
which was somewhat the icon of that
modernity of reinforced concrete,

00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:45.360
of the economic boom of the 60s.

00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:48.400
For many people,
what this tower was,

00:02:48.440 --> 00:02:51.000
on the way from the
airport to the city,

00:02:51.040 --> 00:02:54.560
was a symbol of an
optimistic modernity

00:02:54.600 --> 00:02:59.680
and that through reinforced concrete
it possessed a new formal freedom.

00:02:59.720 --> 00:03:05.560
To a large extent, steel and glass
had led to somewhat more abstract,

00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:09.520
parallelepiped buildings, but
concrete allowed for that condition.

00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:13.520
There is also that
moment of Neorealism,

00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:17.600
that first stage of
Bohigas and the Group R.

00:03:17.640 --> 00:03:19.960
And then, the great
School of Barcelona,

00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.680
which was very important
because there was that desire

00:03:23.720 --> 00:03:28.760
to unite architecture with
a certain social commitment.

00:03:28.800 --> 00:03:32.720
Thus, in public housing and housing
for the most humble sectors,

00:03:32.760 --> 00:03:36.880
it was where it could be
done more effectively.

00:03:36.920 --> 00:03:42.920
With that language partly
inherited from Italy,

00:03:42.960 --> 00:03:46.400
which came from
Italian Neorealism.

00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:55.080
In the art world of the
60s there are some trends:

00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:59.440
conceptual art, land art, etc.

00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:05.120
And one of them... the happening,
the performances, the fluxus...

00:04:05.160 --> 00:04:13.160
One of them, is to look for randomness
in the configuration of form.

00:04:13.160 --> 00:04:14.880
And what happens
in architecture?

00:04:14.920 --> 00:04:18.560
That people like Ricardo
Bofill and others

00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:22.840
start to experiment with the
configuration of basic elements,

00:04:22.880 --> 00:04:29.440
basic houses, small-predefined houses,
and their spatial configuration.

00:04:29.440 --> 00:04:31.320
And they do it in a random way,

00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:36.520
they do it as a game of chance,
like John Cage's "I Ching".

00:04:36.560 --> 00:04:38.960
And from that
comes the Walden 7.

00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:45.960
Walden 7 is the built architecture
of '68, of the youth revolution,

00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:48.800
of what hippies were in the US,

00:04:48.800 --> 00:04:51.840
and here they were these
movements that would end up

00:04:51.880 --> 00:04:55.960
crystallizing in the
French spring of '68.

00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:02.200
Walden 7 remains the best representation
of the youth revolution of '68.

00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:04.960
There will be those who are interested
in it and those who are not,

00:05:04.960 --> 00:05:06.160
those who like it
and those who do not,

00:05:06.200 --> 00:05:07.720
but it must be understood as

00:05:07.760 --> 00:05:12.600
an experiment in aggregation
of many houses in a random way.

00:05:12.640 --> 00:05:16.080
That is to say, on the one hand
we can have the Bellvitge blocks,

00:05:16.080 --> 00:05:19.240
where all the
apartments are the same,

00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:23.240
and on the other we have the Walden
7 where there is certain variability,

00:05:23.280 --> 00:05:27.040
some interior courtyards,
some ventilation systems.

00:05:27.080 --> 00:05:29.800
I think that as mass housing,

00:05:29.840 --> 00:05:34.880
if we accept the idea of mass housing,
it is an interesting proposal.

00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:37.640
In other words, the
ability of an architect

00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:41.960
to organize someone's
life is enormous.

00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:45.080
The architect configures
the interior of houses,

00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:47.440
talking about
residence, about home,

00:05:47.480 --> 00:05:51.280
with some patterns that I
think have to be reviewed.

00:05:51.320 --> 00:05:56.880
In fact, this space is the best proof of
the extent to which I am convinced of that.

00:05:56.920 --> 00:06:02.360
That is to say, this chopping-up of
the 60 square meter space of a house

00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:08.000
into hall, kitchen, dining
room, bathroom and 3 bedrooms,

00:06:08.040 --> 00:06:14.560
actually has to do with a perpetuation
of certain cerebral circuits,

00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:20.600
of certain habits, from which
it is very difficult to escape.

00:06:20.640 --> 00:06:25.440
And that is the interest
of the architect's trade:

00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:29.360
reshaping people's customs.

00:06:29.400 --> 00:06:34.560
In this sense I believe
there are architects

00:06:34.600 --> 00:06:39.480
who can be very interesting
and very good, very favorable,

00:06:39.520 --> 00:06:41.800
and conversely, others
can be very dangerous.

00:06:41.840 --> 00:06:45.560
The architect, obviously, needs
to organize. It is different.

00:06:45.600 --> 00:06:47.760
But the interior designer
needs to understand.

00:06:47.800 --> 00:06:52.240
Understand how that person lives,
and likes to live and likes to sleep.

00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:06.400
So an interior designer takes much
better care of you than an architect,

00:07:06.440 --> 00:07:08.360
the architect stays
in the first layer

00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:12.200
and the interior designer
reaches your deepest needs.

00:07:12.240 --> 00:07:14.240
Sometimes I see the difference
between an architect

00:07:14.280 --> 00:07:16.280
and a decorator or
an interior designer,

00:07:16.320 --> 00:07:20.280
in that the architect is more
dogmatic and he tells you:

00:07:20.280 --> 00:07:21.560
this is what you need.

00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:24.360
The interior design
profession is an occupation

00:07:24.400 --> 00:07:27.800
where you know your client and
you become their psychologist.

00:07:27.840 --> 00:07:31.680
You have to ask them where
they put their panties,

00:07:31.720 --> 00:07:33.200
that is, in what drawer.

00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:37.520
Even these intimate facts, you need
to know to decorate their home.

00:07:37.520 --> 00:07:41.160
Normally, a good interior designer
has no identical interiors,

00:07:41.200 --> 00:07:43.200
they don't exist.

00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:45.160
Because each person
is a different world.

00:07:45.160 --> 00:07:48.480
In public spaces you are
generating almost a kind of set

00:07:48.520 --> 00:07:54.520
or scenery or story that
you will make the user live.

00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:57.240
However, the house has
nothing to do with that,

00:07:57.320 --> 00:08:00.640
it is a precise suit
tailored for the client.

00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:10.320
Correa and Milá, for
me, are absolute models.

00:08:10.320 --> 00:08:13.840
For example, here we have
some fantastic examples,

00:08:13.880 --> 00:08:18.440
the Giardinetto and the Flash Flash as
restaurants, that are almost unrepeatable.

00:08:18.480 --> 00:08:22.840
They occurred at a time when
there was no interior design

00:08:22.840 --> 00:08:25.520
in the hospitality sector
and they still exist,

00:08:25.560 --> 00:08:29.560
they have been operating for 40
years due to several factors,

00:08:29.600 --> 00:08:31.880
and one of them is
good interior design,

00:08:31.880 --> 00:08:34.200
or an interior design that
had not been done before.

00:08:34.240 --> 00:08:37.960
But also because behind it there
has to be a wonderful story to tell,

00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.600
because it is impossible for
someone to have come up with it...

00:08:41.640 --> 00:08:44.920
Where did they get the references,
where did they get all these things?

00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:49.440
Set up a garden with carpets
and this naive thing...

00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:51.080
However, it is wonderful.

00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:55.840
All the elements add up and make up
a wonderful and enveloping whole.

00:08:55.880 --> 00:08:57.600
And the Flash
Flash has the same,

00:08:57.640 --> 00:09:02.120
I think it collects all the
pop momentum of that time.

00:09:02.160 --> 00:09:06.640
And the interior design of
the Flash Flash is wonderful,

00:09:06.680 --> 00:09:12.880
because with just 4 things it is capable
of configuring a superb atmosphere.

00:09:12.880 --> 00:09:16.040
It has a wonderful narrative.

00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:18.080
And these are the models,

00:09:18.120 --> 00:09:21.880
models that were already
influenced by modern architecture:

00:09:21.920 --> 00:09:23.560
Alvar Aalto would be one,

00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:30.600
in the sense of global architecture
that takes everything into account.

00:09:30.640 --> 00:09:33.480
He considers all parts of
the project or building,

00:09:33.520 --> 00:09:38.000
from the urban scale
to the door handle.

00:09:46.680 --> 00:09:49.720
In the 60s the Elisava
School is established,

00:09:49.760 --> 00:09:54.320
which is the first imitation
of the Bauhaus, quite complete.

00:09:54.360 --> 00:09:57.560
I think that the influence of
Alfonso Milá and Federico Correa,

00:09:57.560 --> 00:09:59.200
especially Federico Correa,

00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:05.800
who gave classes both at the Architecture
School and at the Elisava School,

00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:09.920
both of which also
work with Coderch,

00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:16.040
is that they have the strength
of transmiting to the students

00:10:16.080 --> 00:10:22.240
this taste for a fresh, not
overloaded, interior design.

00:10:22.280 --> 00:10:25.600
It evolved into
practically empty spaces

00:10:25.640 --> 00:10:28.800
with those objects
essential for living.

00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:33.000
I was absolutely part of it,

00:10:33.040 --> 00:10:35.280
Barcelona and the world were ours,

00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:39.160
we created the designs
or the interior spaces

00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:43.200
thinking that we were kings
of the hill, it was brutal.

00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:21.440
The last years of Franco and
the years after his death,

00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:26.560
this regeneration had to take place
in an environment of social conflict,

00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:30.960
great economic shortage
and hyperinflation

00:11:36.280 --> 00:11:39.480
It's a very good thing that
we are following the bus.

00:11:39.520 --> 00:11:42.200
This driver is my hero.

00:11:42.200 --> 00:11:44.200
Now, let's see if I can park.

00:11:47.400 --> 00:11:49.640
There is no celebrity
architecture here.

00:11:49.680 --> 00:11:52.240
These are the buildings
where more people live

00:11:52.280 --> 00:11:56.360
and that are less considered,
less taken into account.

00:11:56.400 --> 00:12:01.680
These houses respond to a
particular social moment,

00:12:01.720 --> 00:12:05.400
to people who come
from outside Barcelona,

00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:07.040
who come from the countryside,

00:12:07.040 --> 00:12:12.120
who have had to leave
because they were starving

00:12:12.160 --> 00:12:17.720
and they had to come to the city,
where they were offered a job.

00:12:17.760 --> 00:12:22.680
But nobody took into account
where to house these people

00:12:22.680 --> 00:12:25.880
and they had to make
it on their own.

00:12:25.920 --> 00:12:27.920
And one of the
solutions is this.

00:12:27.920 --> 00:12:30.440
Well, I don't know if it's ugly.

00:12:30.520 --> 00:12:33.480
I don't think this is ugly.

00:12:33.480 --> 00:12:39.960
I would argue against that
statement, this is not ugly.

00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.400
In fact we have
passed by neighbors

00:12:44.400 --> 00:12:48.160
who were saying that they
would not change this place

00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:50.680
for anything in the world.

00:12:52.040 --> 00:12:58.680
The repetition of the same pattern
always has an aesthetic appeal.

00:12:58.680 --> 00:13:05.160
But here there's a repetition that
reflects the topography very well.

00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:08.040
They are also painted
with different colors.

00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:14.200
Somehow they refer to
that game of wood blocks

00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:18.520
that we all had as children.

00:13:18.560 --> 00:13:21.080
The act of playing
with wood blocks

00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:24.760
in some way is what contributes,

00:13:24.800 --> 00:13:29.320
it might partly be an explanation
for the beauty of this place.

00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:31.440
There are many buildings
that are far more ugly

00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:36.000
and have names and
surnames, they are signed.

00:13:37.920 --> 00:13:41.160
And architecture could not produce
great buildings at that time,

00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:44.120
those that ended at that time
had been contracted before.

00:13:53.560 --> 00:13:57.560
The Bankinter building is a
watershed in Spanish architecture,

00:13:57.600 --> 00:13:58.920
for many reasons.

00:13:58.960 --> 00:14:03.360
The essential thing is that
conventional modernity,

00:14:03.400 --> 00:14:06.600
which in Madrid had been
expressed through the fact that

00:14:06.640 --> 00:14:09.080
old palaces surrounded by
gardens were demolished

00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:13.640
and office towers and bank headquarters
were built, that was modernity.

00:14:13.680 --> 00:14:16.600
Modernity was, instead of a
palace surrounded by gardens,

00:14:16.680 --> 00:14:22.360
making a glass tower for a great
economic or financial agent.

00:14:22.360 --> 00:14:25.880
And that is transformed
by Bankinter in two ways:

00:14:25.920 --> 00:14:27.680
first it preserves the palace,

00:14:27.720 --> 00:14:32.320
there is a new awareness
that heritage has value.

00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:37.800
And secondly, he builds it with that
patterned brick typical of Madrid,

00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:40.120
which for many architects, was:

00:14:40.160 --> 00:14:41.960
how is a brick building
going to be modern?

00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:46.400
Modern is glass, metal, concrete...
But brick?

00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:50.600
It creates that giant order that
rises above the small palace

00:14:50.640 --> 00:14:54.400
and is seen from the other
side of the Castellana.

00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:57.360
In other words, it emerges,
but it emerges respectfully

00:14:57.400 --> 00:15:00.840
along the Castellana,
over what it protects.

00:15:00.880 --> 00:15:05.080
It gets in tune with what it
protects using similar materials.

00:15:05.160 --> 00:15:09.120
All this started a period
of respect for heritage,

00:15:09.160 --> 00:15:13.960
of reconstruction of urban
memory, which was essential.

00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:18.280
That building for us was
the hinge between modernity

00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:22.440
understood as new
materials and new forms,

00:15:22.480 --> 00:15:26.040
and modernity understood as
respect for what already existed

00:15:26.080 --> 00:15:30.600
and of an intelligent dialogue
with the architectures of the past.

00:15:30.640 --> 00:15:35.280
Tradition is not ashes, it is
the continuity of the flame.

00:15:35.280 --> 00:15:40.880
That is what these architects,
correctly called postmodern,

00:15:40.920 --> 00:15:43.400
because it was what
came after modernity...

00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:47.000
That postmodernity that
dialogues with the existing

00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:51.920
has Rafael Moneo as
its main defender,

00:15:51.920 --> 00:15:55.320
and the one that intellectually
articulates it best.

00:15:56.920 --> 00:16:02.480
I have always said that our
great teacher was Moneo,

00:16:02.520 --> 00:16:09.240
who taught us to think
architecture with capital letters.

00:16:09.280 --> 00:16:13.360
I have always said that Moneo
never treated us as students

00:16:13.400 --> 00:16:14.840
but as architects.

00:16:14.880 --> 00:16:19.000
He demanded that we know
what our responsibility was.

00:16:19.040 --> 00:16:25.320
Only the brief that he
put in the exercises,

00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:29.720
and just understanding the brief,
was an architecture lesson.

00:16:29.760 --> 00:16:31.760
And it was thought.

00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:35.240
You understood the
brief and you understood

00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:38.560
where the architecture is
going, what architecture is.

00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:45.360
The youth who graduate from the
schools in the late 60s and early 70s

00:16:45.400 --> 00:16:48.080
are very well
trained architects,

00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:53.880
and with a very powerful
ability for political struggle.

00:16:53.880 --> 00:16:59.640
The architecture school was always
more associated to the left,

00:16:59.680 --> 00:17:05.080
to a more social
conscience, in those times.

00:17:05.160 --> 00:17:08.000
We always had books.

00:17:08.040 --> 00:17:12.640
I remember that we always had
to carry a book in our hand.

00:17:12.640 --> 00:17:17.000
This manifestation
of culture craving.

00:17:17.040 --> 00:17:20.440
That is the main vector,

00:17:20.480 --> 00:17:24.760
the main force that then
drives all this forward

00:17:24.800 --> 00:17:31.560
when suddenly local governments,
democratic municipalities

00:17:31.600 --> 00:17:40.120
and autonomies begin to provide money
and believe in these architects,

00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:43.280
and add some of these
architects to their ranks.

00:17:43.360 --> 00:17:45.760
And this is the same as
the "Movida Madrileña",

00:17:45.840 --> 00:17:49.760
like Spanish cinema,
it suddenly rises,

00:17:49.800 --> 00:17:53.680
because when you stop squeezing
something that is compressed it explodes.

00:18:01.760 --> 00:18:04.640
It looks like quite
a normal square,

00:18:04.680 --> 00:18:06.520
it doesn't have much...
I don't know...

00:18:06.560 --> 00:18:08.640
As a square it has nothing.

00:18:08.680 --> 00:18:11.960
For us, in the neighborhood,
it has absolutely nothing.

00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:13.840
We don't like it.

00:18:13.840 --> 00:18:15.720
I find it very cold.

00:18:15.760 --> 00:18:19.080
I know that it is OK for
those who ride a skateboard

00:18:19.080 --> 00:18:22.640
because they go
jumping around but...

00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:25.680
I like the square, I
would leave it like this.

00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:27.480
It is a hard square,

00:18:27.520 --> 00:18:30.600
and I would like that there be a
little more green, vegetation...

00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:32.640
When a square is
cozy, people say

00:18:32.680 --> 00:18:34.800
"let's go to the square for
a while and walk around".

00:18:34.840 --> 00:18:36.280
I have never seen anyone here.

00:18:36.320 --> 00:18:39.360
It is soulless and
badly finished.

00:18:39.360 --> 00:18:42.680
This, architecturally,
has absolutely nothing.

00:18:42.720 --> 00:18:46.440
Man, a little more green,
give it a little more spice.

00:18:46.480 --> 00:18:48.920
The truth is that it seems to
me that I could do this too.

00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.560
Architects should know how to do
it differently, and not like this.

00:18:54.920 --> 00:18:58.080
But when you go by there and
stand under that pallium,

00:18:58.120 --> 00:18:59.800
what do you feel?

00:18:59.840 --> 00:19:01.840
Why do you have
to do an activity,

00:19:01.880 --> 00:19:03.680
why do you have to go
there to play with a ball?

00:19:03.720 --> 00:19:08.240
I mean, if you go there and feel
something, that's a lot, right?

00:19:08.280 --> 00:19:11.760
The thing is that we are
always very tied to activity,

00:19:11.800 --> 00:19:13.480
to movement, to
who knows what...

00:19:13.480 --> 00:19:15.920
If we are not doing
something it is not...

00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:21.720
Can’t we feel and let a space transmit
a lot of things? Isn't this a lot?

00:19:21.760 --> 00:19:25.680
I believe that this square has simply
never been understood like this.

00:19:25.720 --> 00:19:35.120
People were still waiting for a green
surface to lie down to sunbathe.

00:19:35.160 --> 00:19:41.000
I think you have to
distrust first impressions.

00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:45.400
That is, it is interesting to
understand what was there before,

00:19:45.440 --> 00:19:51.240
what was the program attended to
by the architecture professionals.

00:19:51.280 --> 00:19:58.520
What I mean to say is that "I like it,
I don't like it" is ultimately not valid.

00:19:58.560 --> 00:20:02.480
It is a slab, a platform
that covers the train tracks,

00:20:02.520 --> 00:20:06.640
of a very fine thickness that
cannot withstand large traffic,

00:20:06.680 --> 00:20:10.080
or a parking lot, or
land to put trees.

00:20:10.120 --> 00:20:15.680
Secondly, the architecture of
the late 70s and early 80s,

00:20:15.720 --> 00:20:20.720
starts to look for ways of
artificialization of nature

00:20:20.760 --> 00:20:25.480
with this abstraction typical
of the most modern art.

00:20:25.480 --> 00:20:29.680
With a new language, it
generates a series of spaces

00:20:29.760 --> 00:20:32.440
that you can truly
end up enjoying.

00:20:32.440 --> 00:20:35.600
And what we could say is that
maybe it shakes people up,

00:20:35.640 --> 00:20:37.640
due to the fact that
they don't recognize,

00:20:37.640 --> 00:20:39.640
through this language,

00:20:39.720 --> 00:20:44.080
the shade that some
trees give, the bench...

00:20:44.120 --> 00:20:47.120
What do you want
to give to people?

00:20:47.160 --> 00:20:53.080
A spiritual space or do you want to
give them the world's softest sofa?

00:20:53.120 --> 00:20:56.360
Not everything has to be
sweet and comfortable.

00:20:56.400 --> 00:21:00.120
All of this is OK, but there
are also many dangers to it

00:21:00.160 --> 00:21:07.080
because it can take us to a
situation with no contribution...

00:21:07.120 --> 00:21:10.800
I'm sorry, but then there's also all
that part which we are not aware of,

00:21:10.840 --> 00:21:14.880
it is the door to the station, and
it is a place that has personality.

00:21:14.920 --> 00:21:17.600
- It is the entrance to Barcelona.
- I feel personality in it.

00:21:17.640 --> 00:21:24.760
For the first time, it put on site an
idea of a totally new public space,

00:21:24.840 --> 00:21:30.240
never seen before. It
was an absolute novelty.

00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:32.400
And of course this had
a very important impact.

00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:36.160
When the AVE was made,
the emergency exits

00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:41.800
of all the tracks under the
square were done temporarily

00:21:41.800 --> 00:21:44.960
through those kind of boxes.

00:21:45.040 --> 00:21:48.280
From my point of view,
someone with very bad ideas,

00:21:48.320 --> 00:21:54.480
destroyed a work of art. It's like
putting a label on a Miró painting.

00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:56.480
The value is there.

00:21:56.520 --> 00:22:00.800
And have they seen the cat?
Have they seen the cat or not?

00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:13.560
I still quote my students
a phrase by Manuel Solà:

00:22:13.600 --> 00:22:16.560
"Any laid out time was better."

00:22:16.560 --> 00:22:22.040
And it is so, for
traditional layouts,

00:22:22.080 --> 00:22:25.080
we should not think that
because they are traditional

00:22:25.120 --> 00:22:26.440
they are no longer modern.

00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:30.760
No, laying out a city
is an important act

00:22:30.800 --> 00:22:33.920
and this is what Manuel
Solà had very clear,

00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:39.760
what Bohigas did in the Olympic Village,
which is that the city is laid out.

00:22:39.800 --> 00:22:43.560
The experience of Barcelona
has been, I think,

00:22:43.600 --> 00:22:45.600
the most successful and the one

00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:47.520
that has had the longest
international trajectory.

00:22:47.560 --> 00:22:51.360
Barcelona has done it before
and better than others have.

00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:54.480
They had the great
legacy of Cerdà,

00:22:54.520 --> 00:22:57.760
that is, they had an
extraordinary city,

00:22:57.760 --> 00:23:01.360
and they knew how to
prolong it and extend it.

00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:08.800
Bohigas did make the best
slogan for Barcelona:

00:23:09.080 --> 00:23:13.000
Sanitize the center,
monumentalize the periphery.

00:23:13.040 --> 00:23:14.440
It was very simple.

00:23:14.440 --> 00:23:18.880
It was to open gaps within
the center with small squares.

00:23:18.960 --> 00:23:23.760
Sanitizing the center
meant light, air, greenery.

00:23:23.800 --> 00:23:31.360
Because for Bohigas, in his
slightly enlightened mentality,

00:23:31.400 --> 00:23:35.760
better spatial conditions
also meant an improvement

00:23:35.800 --> 00:23:37.800
in the lives of these people.

00:23:37.840 --> 00:23:39.920
And the same thing
happened on the periphery,

00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:44.040
which was so bland, so
boring, so poorly built,

00:23:44.080 --> 00:23:47.840
that monumentalizing means
introducing some points of interest.

00:23:47.880 --> 00:23:52.880
Even if it was to paint
a façade red or yellow.

00:23:52.920 --> 00:23:55.200
Put some color on it.

00:23:56.000 --> 00:23:58.480
Build schools, pave, put trees.

00:23:58.520 --> 00:24:03.280
Things as simple as, not
turning them into monuments,

00:24:03.320 --> 00:24:12.280
but giving them the same quality of public
space that the rest of the city had.

00:24:12.840 --> 00:24:17.160
Placing architectural or
infrastructure icons in the periphery,

00:24:17.200 --> 00:24:20.480
such as the Calatrava
Bridge in Bac de Roda.

00:24:20.520 --> 00:24:23.400
You say "Hey, you don't need
such an important bridge

00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:27.000
for such a small span".

00:24:27.040 --> 00:24:30.320
But it became a
sculpture, it was an icon,

00:24:30.320 --> 00:24:34.000
it spoke of the pride of
the people of the periphery,

00:24:34.040 --> 00:24:37.920
of the neighborhoods, for also
having significant buildings.

00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:43.840
Santiago, I think, is a man who has
changed the way of building bridges,

00:24:43.880 --> 00:24:46.360
he has altered it.

00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:51.080
Since Calatrava, the
bridges are now different.

00:24:51.080 --> 00:24:56.920
They are no longer a way to span a
space but the creation of a place.

00:24:56.920 --> 00:24:59.160
This is because
Calatrava exists.

00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:05.480
My teacher Alejandro de la Sota

00:25:05.520 --> 00:25:07.880
said that an architect
is two things:

00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:11.000
an intellectual, to understand
the surrounding society

00:25:11.040 --> 00:25:12.600
and what society needs,

00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:15.640
and a technician, to
be able to produce

00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:21.800
those objects and those constructions
or buildings that are essential.

00:25:21.840 --> 00:25:24.880
He said that they don't
have to be artists,

00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:28.400
if someone is an artist... the
spirit blows where it wants,

00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:30.280
but it is not essential
for them to be artists.

00:25:30.320 --> 00:25:32.320
But they do have to be an
intellectual and a technician.

00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:34.640
And that intellectual
and technical training

00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:39.640
is what makes the architect
aware of how they should act

00:25:39.680 --> 00:25:42.400
and what economic resources
they should use in each case.

00:25:42.440 --> 00:25:44.520
Maybe they don’t have
to be an intellectual

00:25:44.560 --> 00:25:46.920
in the most pedantic
sense of the word,

00:25:46.920 --> 00:25:49.680
but they do have to
have some reflection

00:25:49.720 --> 00:25:51.560
or self-reflection on
what they are doing.

00:25:51.560 --> 00:25:54.040
That is, a transformation
of society

00:25:54.080 --> 00:25:56.760
cannot be proposed if one
does not know society.

00:25:56.760 --> 00:26:03.040
A cultural space cannot be changed if
the culture of that place is not known.

00:26:03.080 --> 00:26:06.040
I think the idea of the new,

00:26:06.040 --> 00:26:08.000
which is associated with modern,

00:26:08.040 --> 00:26:12.200
"the modern, the modern, is always
new, is always newer, new again..."

00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:16.000
This is one of the ideas
that is questioned nowadays.

00:26:16.880 --> 00:26:20.040
And therefore architects do not
need to be always innovative,

00:26:20.040 --> 00:26:24.040
always groundbreaking
and always visionary.

00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:27.360
And architecture
begins with thought,

00:26:27.360 --> 00:26:30.200
and we have to
know how to think.

00:26:30.240 --> 00:26:36.040
And we educate more
towards knowing how to act

00:26:36.080 --> 00:26:39.600
to achieve more formal results

00:26:39.600 --> 00:26:42.760
than in the responsibility
of being an architect

00:26:42.760 --> 00:26:47.040
and educating thought.

00:26:47.080 --> 00:26:52.560
It seems that universities are
dedicated to finding work for kids

00:26:52.560 --> 00:26:57.080
rather than training them in
what it means to be an architect.

00:26:57.120 --> 00:27:01.120
Because the architect has a very
large social responsibility,

00:27:02.040 --> 00:27:07.760
but universities
are educating them

00:27:07.800 --> 00:27:14.680
to know how to communicate, to
find and sell beautiful forms.

00:27:23.080 --> 00:27:26.720
After that stage
of postmodernism

00:27:26.760 --> 00:27:29.840
in which attention
to history, memory,

00:27:30.600 --> 00:27:34.200
tradition, urban environment,
respect for heritage,

00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:37.440
which postmodernity
brought with itself,

00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:43.840
deconstructivism, which opened
in a famous exhibition at MoMA

00:27:43.840 --> 00:27:47.120
one year before the Berlin
Wall fell, by the way...

00:27:47.160 --> 00:27:52.400
Deconstructivism was a movement
that also had influence in Spain,

00:27:52.440 --> 00:27:55.200
and what it wanted
to express was that

00:27:55.240 --> 00:28:00.240
if we live in especially
fractured, controversial years,

00:28:00.280 --> 00:28:02.760
we must make a fractured,
controversial architecture,

00:28:02.840 --> 00:28:07.280
broken, because architecture had to
express the disorder of the times.

00:28:07.320 --> 00:28:12.400
And in the case of Spain with
its main thinker, who would be

00:28:12.440 --> 00:28:17.160
Enric Miralles,
a brilliant person.

00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:22.200
It is surely the closest thing to
a young Mozart I have ever met.

00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:26.800
A personality with a
very powerful ability

00:28:26.800 --> 00:28:33.280
to draw and create
strange forms.

00:28:33.320 --> 00:28:36.480
At a time when there
was a certain fatigue

00:28:36.520 --> 00:28:40.560
of all this stuff about
rationalisms, historicisms

00:28:40.600 --> 00:28:44.600
and certain architectural
forms already widely seen,

00:28:44.600 --> 00:28:48.080
Miralles was revolutionary...
very revolutionary!

00:28:50.680 --> 00:28:54.120
Well, I don't know if he was Mozart
or if he was Gaudí or if he was...

00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:58.320
but he was one of these people who
have a really powerful creativity.

00:28:59.560 --> 00:29:02.080
He died very prematurely,

00:29:02.120 --> 00:29:06.400
but he left behind a
sequence of admirable works,

00:29:06.440 --> 00:29:09.760
and that left a glow

00:29:11.600 --> 00:29:13.880
difficult to match.

00:29:13.920 --> 00:29:17.360
The most important, of course,
where he is sadly buried today.

00:29:24.480 --> 00:29:27.840
I had the great luck
of being with Enric

00:29:27.840 --> 00:29:30.600
and of share 24 hours a day,

00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:35.960
thinking and discovering
together what we wanted,

00:29:35.960 --> 00:29:37.960
what architecture was for us.

00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:42.360
Our idea was to enter
this land with a zigzag,

00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:45.400
as animals descend on
the earth, doing zigzag.

00:29:45.440 --> 00:29:49.800
And after observing some photos

00:29:49.840 --> 00:29:56.480
of how logs moved in the rivers,

00:29:56.520 --> 00:29:59.880
we made a concrete pavement,

00:29:59.920 --> 00:30:04.400
full of logs, which are
the logs that descend.

00:30:04.440 --> 00:30:07.400
This is again another reference

00:30:07.400 --> 00:30:11.880
of life as roads that
end up in the sea.

00:30:11.960 --> 00:30:16.360
The cemetery is very rhetorical
in a very lyrical sense.

00:30:16.400 --> 00:30:18.800
It awakens passions.

00:30:20.120 --> 00:30:21.640
It’s quite magical.

00:30:21.640 --> 00:30:23.960
And in the chapel...

00:30:24.000 --> 00:30:28.600
it's this form similar
to this kind of triangle.

00:30:28.640 --> 00:30:33.720
When you are talking
about spaces of intimacy,

00:30:33.720 --> 00:30:35.440
you do this sort of gesture.

00:30:35.440 --> 00:30:39.720
This gesture was like
the volume of the chapel,

00:30:39.760 --> 00:30:41.400
the geometry of the chapel.

00:30:41.400 --> 00:30:44.600
And this point, the deepest
point inside the earth,

00:30:44.640 --> 00:30:47.160
is the one that had
to be illuminated.

00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:51.320
So we make skylights appear
here and the light is below,

00:30:51.360 --> 00:30:52.960
where you least expect it,

00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.440
at the bottom of the
earth and not above.

00:30:58.840 --> 00:31:03.120
I think that the cemetery
is in a magnificent moment,

00:31:03.120 --> 00:31:09.320
it has something
a little romantic…

00:31:09.360 --> 00:31:12.320
it is almost a ruin.

00:31:12.360 --> 00:31:18.520
We thought of the cemetery
as a dialogue with nature.

00:31:18.560 --> 00:31:22.480
A ruin is nothing other
than the moment when nature

00:31:22.520 --> 00:31:26.400
starts to recover the space that
had been taken away from it,

00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:30.960
and there is this balance
between nature and construction,

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:34.440
that is a ruin, that
always excites us,

00:31:34.440 --> 00:31:38.120
because deep down it talks
about life and death... a ruin.

00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:39.960
This remained half finished,

00:31:39.960 --> 00:31:41.960
because the cemetery has
never been completed.

00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:46.280
I prefer that everything
stay as it is.

00:31:47.160 --> 00:31:50.600
It is not something that
nature is destroying,

00:31:50.600 --> 00:31:54.600
it seems like nature
has been approaching

00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:57.640
and has entered this
desired dialogue.

00:32:00.080 --> 00:32:03.920
What we'd like is to think that

00:32:03.920 --> 00:32:11.280
space contributes a special
feeling to the person.

00:32:11.320 --> 00:32:14.840
The person activates that
space and starts to feel it.

00:32:15.240 --> 00:32:17.920
Of course, you activate
your space, indeed,

00:32:17.960 --> 00:32:20.400
but above all... activate it!

00:32:20.400 --> 00:32:22.600
In a way that, when the
professional has left,

00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:26.880
you dare to give this
space some energy.

00:32:26.920 --> 00:32:31.600
To fill it with books and make it
look a bit messy at any given time,

00:32:31.640 --> 00:32:34.400
and end up being...

00:32:34.440 --> 00:32:38.160
in the end your spaces are your
reflection, your own personality.

00:32:38.160 --> 00:32:42.320
What we are interested in
is to change the space,

00:32:42.360 --> 00:32:45.640
generate new spaces,
different and comfortable.

00:32:45.920 --> 00:32:48.080
Changing the location of doors,

00:32:48.120 --> 00:32:54.200
create circulations, good
circulations, light...

00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:56.640
It's not important if the
coffee machine is green or red.

00:32:56.680 --> 00:33:01.760
A phrase by Miguel Milá that I also love
is “to arouse emotions with the simple”.

00:33:01.760 --> 00:33:04.880
You arrive at a place where
there is practically nothing

00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:06.880
and it is beautiful
because there is nothing,

00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:10.800
there is a beautiful light, a wonderful
color of the walls, a chair...

00:33:10.840 --> 00:33:12.440
You are amazed.

00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:17.120
However, when you go to a place that
carries an excess of everything,

00:33:17.160 --> 00:33:19.440
you are not thrilled
in the same way.

00:33:19.440 --> 00:33:21.120
It thrills you in another way.

00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:08.080
If there's a lot of
material materiality,

00:34:08.080 --> 00:34:12.600
it distracts perception and the
object takes on value, not the space.

00:34:12.600 --> 00:34:18.800
We discovered that if we just
worked with one material,

00:34:19.800 --> 00:34:31.280
space benefited in the sense
that space became more apparent.

00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:36.680
In other words, we found that if
we worked with different materials,

00:34:36.720 --> 00:34:40.760
your attention is captured
by these different materials.

00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:43.360
When material became
more homogeneous...

00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:45.640
it disappears, this
material loses value,

00:34:45.680 --> 00:34:49.400
and then space is the one that
takes on value and presence.

00:34:49.440 --> 00:34:52.440
And from this, also the importance
of our appreciation of the void.

00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:56.160
And then, above all, the
proportion in the spaces,

00:34:56.160 --> 00:34:59.960
that things breathe a
harmonic proportion.

00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:03.840
We pursue that a lot. This is then
very difficult to see in the photos.

00:35:03.880 --> 00:35:07.440
This has to be lived
within the space, inside.

00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:12.280
That the composition is accurate,
adequate. Very important.

00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:17.120
It is very rare to see people with
a lot of money that have good taste.

00:35:17.160 --> 00:35:20.200
I mean... I know that good taste
is the anesthesia of the public,

00:35:20.240 --> 00:35:22.360
it could be, that is
what Victor Papanek said,

00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:25.200
but to see people
with a lot of money

00:35:25.200 --> 00:35:29.160
who live in a tasteful way...
it is difficult.

00:35:29.200 --> 00:35:30.880
Because, people who
have a lot of money…

00:35:30.920 --> 00:35:34.400
why do they like to get
into such enormous houses?

00:35:34.400 --> 00:35:37.280
You take an Hola (gossip magazine)
and you'll never see a house...

00:35:37.320 --> 00:35:40.560
When I do take a Hola there's
never a house where I would live.

00:35:40.640 --> 00:35:43.320
Never, on the contrary.

00:35:43.320 --> 00:35:45.120
There is too much of everything:

00:35:45.160 --> 00:35:47.840
300 cushions on a bed...

00:35:47.880 --> 00:35:49.880
things that you say: my God!

00:35:49.880 --> 00:35:52.440
How can people live like this?

00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:54.000
And that is money.

00:35:54.040 --> 00:35:57.560
It is also a horrible example for
people who do not have so much money,

00:35:57.600 --> 00:36:00.640
they have that as a
model of what they want,

00:36:00.680 --> 00:36:05.080
what they would like to have.
My God, what a fright!

00:36:05.160 --> 00:36:07.280
We are children of minimalism.

00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:10.920
With very few elements,
we define space.

00:36:11.480 --> 00:36:18.160
We rather like not covering up but
leaving things out in the open.

00:36:18.240 --> 00:36:24.080
The excess of stuff generates
a stress to the eyes

00:36:24.080 --> 00:36:26.560
that certain kind of
people might enjoy.

00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:49.000
92 is the annus
mirabilis of Spain,

00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:52.200
when the Olympic
Games of Barcelona,

00:36:52.280 --> 00:36:56.200
the Expo of Seville and the cultural
capital status of Madrid coincide.

00:36:56.240 --> 00:37:02.600
At the end of 93 the Spanish economy
recovers and it thrives for 14 years.

00:37:07.200 --> 00:37:14.640
The Illa Diagonal is a building
that has a touch of humility

00:37:14.680 --> 00:37:17.880
but solves tremendously
complex problems.

00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:21.160
To start, how it is crossed.

00:37:21.160 --> 00:37:24.920
How it is crossed by car,
how it is crossed on foot,

00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:28.800
how to create façade to a street
as important as the Diagonal,

00:37:28.800 --> 00:37:30.800
which is 100 meters wide.

00:37:30.840 --> 00:37:34.400
On the one hand, as you know,
the elevation is not homogeneous,

00:37:34.440 --> 00:37:38.680
he does not put a 300-meter
block crowned with a cornice,

00:37:38.720 --> 00:37:42.800
but rather it is staggered in
a somewhat picturesque way,

00:37:42.840 --> 00:37:46.600
and at the same time he staggers
it, he also sets it back.

00:37:46.640 --> 00:37:50.800
So that there remains that
exfoliation, which is a bit cubist,

00:37:50.840 --> 00:37:55.720
that makes a building that could
have been perceived as oppressing,

00:37:55.760 --> 00:37:59.080
because of its size and scale,

00:37:59.120 --> 00:38:02.520
fracture and become more
friendly to the citizen,

00:38:02.520 --> 00:38:05.680
because it is three
of Cerdà's blocks.

00:38:05.720 --> 00:38:09.680
The pieces that are
added in the back

00:38:09.720 --> 00:38:12.800
build that smaller grain
that adapts better.

00:38:12.840 --> 00:38:17.880
There are little streets,
some stairs, a small access…

00:38:17.920 --> 00:38:19.920
They build that smaller grain

00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:22.880
that is better suited to the district
of Les Corts, which is just behind.

00:38:28.560 --> 00:38:31.160
The city is what makes us social,

00:38:31.200 --> 00:38:33.200
maximum respect for it.

00:38:33.200 --> 00:38:37.920
I tell students: putting
a bench is making a city,

00:38:37.960 --> 00:38:43.600
signaling a zebra
crossing is making a city,

00:38:43.640 --> 00:38:45.640
and we have to be
very aware of it.

00:38:45.680 --> 00:38:48.080
Every time we intervene in
the city, we are making city.

00:38:48.120 --> 00:38:50.120
I always say to the students:

00:38:50.120 --> 00:38:53.640
be careful because the architect
builds but starts destroying,

00:38:53.680 --> 00:38:57.040
and destroys things that
cannot be recovered.

00:38:57.080 --> 00:39:02.840
And thus, how through architecture
we can give people dignity.

00:39:02.880 --> 00:39:05.040
It is our responsibility.

00:39:05.080 --> 00:39:08.080
And I believe that it is the
one that excites the most

00:39:08.080 --> 00:39:11.600
and the one that the architect
must have the most awareness of.

00:39:11.640 --> 00:39:16.600
Modifying the surroundings
is very powerful

00:39:16.640 --> 00:39:18.840
and must be done carefully.

00:39:18.880 --> 00:39:22.720
You have to do it with
caution and humility.

00:39:22.720 --> 00:39:26.000
Yes, it is a very addictive
power, like all powers.

00:39:26.040 --> 00:39:30.200
Yes, it is a very catchy power.

00:39:30.840 --> 00:39:34.960
Indeed, in general, architecture
is a way to regenerate the city.

00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:36.960
When you build a large building,

00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:40.800
you know that others will
be produced around it.

00:39:40.840 --> 00:39:42.840
Many times these are
public investments,

00:39:42.840 --> 00:39:45.800
deciding to place a new
museum in the Raval,

00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:48.240
like Meier's, knowing that...

00:39:48.240 --> 00:39:52.400
“-Hey, in this neighborhood?
- Yes, let's build it here.”

00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:54.760
And that, regardless
of the value

00:39:54.760 --> 00:39:58.480
that Richard Meier's
Neo-Corbusian language may have,

00:39:58.520 --> 00:40:01.480
what it does contribute is
to regenerate that area,

00:40:01.520 --> 00:40:07.000
because other institutions, other
galleries, other shops settle in,

00:40:07.040 --> 00:40:10.960
and the city is
given another life.

00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:15.400
To make architecture is not
only to make a building,

00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:19.880
it is to contribute to the
regeneration and making of the city.

00:40:19.920 --> 00:40:23.560
A program is always questions.

00:40:23.600 --> 00:40:26.520
When I deal with a place,

00:40:26.520 --> 00:40:30.400
the first thing I do is
ask what it wants, observe.

00:40:30.440 --> 00:40:34.440
Because the place is asking
or rejecting other things.

00:40:36.120 --> 00:40:38.840
In the end, we must
answer two questions:

00:40:38.880 --> 00:40:40.680
what do we have to do and
where do we have to do it.

00:40:40.720 --> 00:40:43.680
What we really like is to get
to the root, or to the essence,

00:40:43.720 --> 00:40:45.600
or to the initial
concept of things.

00:40:45.600 --> 00:40:47.600
That is to say: What
do we have to do?

00:40:47.640 --> 00:40:49.640
It is this concept:
What do we have to do?

00:40:49.680 --> 00:40:54.400
A lighthouse, a place to sleep? And
then, where do we have to do it.

00:40:54.440 --> 00:40:58.600
So, finding which is the
basic concept of things

00:40:58.600 --> 00:41:01.720
and then deal with the specific
place where we have to do it,

00:41:01.760 --> 00:41:05.480
this gives kind of a unique
answer, and we like it.

00:41:05.520 --> 00:41:09.800
Place, for us, has been
a very important element,

00:41:09.840 --> 00:41:12.800
we've always wanted to
really link ourselves to it.

00:41:12.800 --> 00:41:16.800
We've always wanted to set
up a dialogue between equals.

00:41:16.840 --> 00:41:19.840
We've wanted to link ourselves
to it but talking one on one,

00:41:19.880 --> 00:41:22.280
we have never wanted to
surrender ourselves to the place,

00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:24.320
to say "We're not here,
let’s not be seen..."

00:41:24.360 --> 00:41:27.320
or to say “here we are and
we destroy everything”.

00:41:27.320 --> 00:41:28.800
Not one or the other,

00:41:28.840 --> 00:41:32.720
but instead saying: "Hey, you are here,
I'm also coming, let’s go together".

00:41:32.760 --> 00:41:35.520
With a dialogue that
is very equal to equal.

00:41:35.560 --> 00:41:38.640
And this is an
attitude that we have,

00:41:38.680 --> 00:41:41.520
whether we are in a
natural environment

00:41:41.560 --> 00:41:44.160
or in a preexisting building
as it might be here.

00:41:44.240 --> 00:41:46.840
It is the same, it
is again an approach,

00:41:46.840 --> 00:41:49.240
an attitude,
a procedural approach.

00:41:51.560 --> 00:41:54.800
It is in fact true
that we don't like...

00:41:54.840 --> 00:42:00.560
that flatness that is given
by one single paint color,

00:42:00.600 --> 00:42:03.120
that thing...

00:42:03.120 --> 00:42:06.480
It's like it when you
look at a leaf and say:

00:42:06.520 --> 00:42:08.520
"if I now take the color
green, I'll paint it".

00:42:08.520 --> 00:42:11.600
No, you can take a lot
of green or whatever

00:42:11.600 --> 00:42:14.040
but you never end up
painting the color of a leaf,

00:42:14.080 --> 00:42:16.760
because it is made out
of millions of colors.

00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:24.120
We like that materials, ultimately,
have like this whole registry,

00:42:24.120 --> 00:42:26.120
and this indeed
happens to us a lot.

00:42:26.160 --> 00:42:28.480
We like materials to be...

00:42:28.520 --> 00:42:30.520
that they express
a lot of themselves

00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:35.760
and that they are also lively
and rich in themselves.

00:42:35.800 --> 00:42:40.800
Steel has an important condition
for us: it is very precise.

00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:43.880
You end up dimensioning
it in millimeters.

00:42:43.920 --> 00:42:50.640
Actually, the first house we made,
we even used half millimeters.

00:42:52.720 --> 00:42:56.640
No comment, no comment...

00:42:56.680 --> 00:42:59.800
So then, steel, which is
measured in millimeters,

00:42:59.800 --> 00:43:02.400
when it seems that concrete
sometimes goes by hand spans…

00:43:02.400 --> 00:43:05.680
of course we really liked this.
It is very precise.

00:43:09.600 --> 00:43:15.320
Caixaforum is formidable and is
exquisite in all its details,

00:43:15.360 --> 00:43:17.360
but at the same time
very intelligent

00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:19.160
in the way they have
approached everything.

00:43:19.160 --> 00:43:23.880
A disused power plant,
built 100 years ago,

00:43:23.920 --> 00:43:27.040
obsolete, made out of brick,

00:43:27.080 --> 00:43:29.080
but surrounded by narrow streets

00:43:29.080 --> 00:43:32.080
and with a gas station in front.
A really bad place.

00:43:32.120 --> 00:43:34.000
And there Herzog
and de Meuron

00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:38.880
had the extraordinary talent on
the one hand of growing upwards

00:43:38.920 --> 00:43:41.320
and on the other
growing downwards,

00:43:41.320 --> 00:43:43.320
and the square that they
could not have around it,

00:43:43.360 --> 00:43:44.600
they put it under.

00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:48.040
Then the building is
almost lifted in suspense,

00:43:48.080 --> 00:43:50.680
because they had
no space around it.

00:43:50.720 --> 00:43:54.000
Later they were able to buy
and demolish the gas station

00:43:54.040 --> 00:43:56.840
and a building next door was burned
and another square remained.

00:43:56.840 --> 00:43:58.440
Now it is surrounded by squares,

00:43:58.480 --> 00:44:01.320
but when this was developed
there was no space...

00:44:01.320 --> 00:44:03.960
How are you going to
make a great art center

00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:07.480
without having a place
where people arrive?

00:44:08.320 --> 00:44:10.760
I think it is the
most valuable building

00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:13.680
that has been made in Madrid in
the last decade, without a doubt.

00:44:13.680 --> 00:44:16.200
On the one hand it does
not rise above the houses,

00:44:16.240 --> 00:44:20.160
therefore people do not see it
as a building that is imposing,

00:44:20.200 --> 00:44:23.800
but as a building that blends.

00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:25.880
And then they use that
technique of theirs,

00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:30.040
which is that the new and the old
do not necessarily have to contrast,

00:44:30.080 --> 00:44:32.560
but rather merge.

00:44:32.600 --> 00:44:36.240
Before, the traditional thing
was if you go to a monastery,

00:44:36.240 --> 00:44:39.640
what you add after has to
be all aluminum and glass

00:44:39.680 --> 00:44:41.080
to make it look like it is new.

00:44:41.120 --> 00:44:47.040
Therefore, people always see it as a
little Frankenstein, a sum of things.

00:44:47.080 --> 00:44:51.560
And they have a technique
of intervention on heritage

00:44:51.560 --> 00:44:56.080
in which they ensure that
the new, being recognizable,

00:44:56.120 --> 00:44:57.920
merges with the old.

00:45:17.480 --> 00:45:20.520
The crisis of 2008
is tremendous,

00:45:20.520 --> 00:45:23.280
that is the crisis of a system.

00:45:23.320 --> 00:45:28.120
And then, of course,
the popular discontent,

00:45:28.120 --> 00:45:31.320
the impoverishment of
the middle classes...

00:45:31.360 --> 00:45:36.360
What the crisis put on the
table was the contradiction

00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:40.920
that perhaps it is not necessary
to make very large buildings

00:45:40.960 --> 00:45:45.880
to embellish a policy
or an ideology,

00:45:45.920 --> 00:45:52.560
but in a country where we all have trouble
paying bills at the end of the month,

00:45:52.640 --> 00:45:55.960
you have to be a
little more humble.

00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:59.080
I believe that it has been
more the lack of humility,

00:45:59.120 --> 00:46:03.000
not of the architect, but the
lack of humility of a system

00:46:03.040 --> 00:46:08.560
that sought through architecture
to justify certain...

00:46:08.600 --> 00:46:11.600
through certain excesses
to justify ideologies.

00:46:11.600 --> 00:46:14.560
And what the crisis has done,

00:46:14.600 --> 00:46:19.240
has been pointing the finger

00:46:19.280 --> 00:46:22.960
at those architects and
by extension to all of us,

00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:26.440
so that we do not cross
the line, I think justly.

00:46:26.440 --> 00:46:30.120
Because it was no longer the
Spain of the great buildings,

00:46:30.160 --> 00:46:31.480
the great icons,

00:46:31.520 --> 00:46:36.200
but the Spain of austerity,
modesty, laconism.

00:46:36.200 --> 00:46:37.840
That is where we are now

00:46:37.880 --> 00:46:39.880
and where there are great
people that are building.

00:46:48.360 --> 00:46:51.880
When some foreigner
comes to see me, I say:

00:46:51.920 --> 00:46:55.280
In Madrid there are two things,
the Caixaforum and Madrid Río.

00:46:55.320 --> 00:46:58.400
6 km of river park.

00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:02.440
And this has made it a critical
success but also a public success.

00:47:02.480 --> 00:47:03.880
People love it.

00:47:03.920 --> 00:47:07.480
Urban interventions that, in
addition to their formal quality,

00:47:07.480 --> 00:47:08.640
transform the city,

00:47:08.640 --> 00:47:12.480
that have the ability to
make the city different.

00:47:12.520 --> 00:47:14.800
And indeed Madrid Río
has changed the city,

00:47:14.840 --> 00:47:17.320
it has great virtues.

00:47:17.320 --> 00:47:21.480
One of them is that it is a
park in the area that is most...

00:47:21.520 --> 00:47:25.120
In Madrid the north has been the
richest and most prosperous area,

00:47:25.160 --> 00:47:28.280
where people with more money lived,
where the large offices were,

00:47:28.280 --> 00:47:30.720
and the south has
been more needy,

00:47:30.760 --> 00:47:34.560
humbler and with less
spaces for leisure.

00:47:34.600 --> 00:47:38.280
And it is precisely in the area
that needed parks the most,

00:47:38.320 --> 00:47:41.000
and at the same time it
is a long and narrow park,

00:47:41.040 --> 00:47:42.720
surrounded by building masses

00:47:42.760 --> 00:47:45.360
from which people can go
down immediately and use it.

00:47:45.400 --> 00:47:49.840
And linked to Madrid Río is
the transformation of Matadero,

00:47:49.880 --> 00:47:54.200
with different young architects,
the best of that generation,

00:47:54.200 --> 00:47:58.040
who have made many very
intelligent interventions

00:47:58.080 --> 00:48:02.840
to transform it into a place of
culture of the young, new culture.

00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:08.240
We are at a time where the star
architect is totally in crisis

00:48:08.280 --> 00:48:12.720
and now an architecture is being made
that has to prove that it is a humble,

00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:14.800
simple architecture
that serves society.

00:48:21.160 --> 00:48:24.080
The greatest enemy
of interior design?

00:48:25.520 --> 00:48:27.520
Vintage.

00:48:29.480 --> 00:48:33.440
No... I don't know,
thinking about it...

00:48:33.440 --> 00:48:36.640
The decoration objects stores,

00:48:36.720 --> 00:48:41.000
those that sell absurd stuff:

00:48:41.000 --> 00:48:48.400
cushions, small bottles,
things to fill up homes.

00:48:48.440 --> 00:48:54.120
You encounter regulations and
regulations up to a point of excess…

00:48:54.160 --> 00:48:59.720
And this is what sometimes I think
that can become a quite powerful enemy.

00:49:00.120 --> 00:49:05.360
I believe that the greatest
enemy of architecture

00:49:05.400 --> 00:49:09.480
is always the lack of attention

00:49:09.520 --> 00:49:13.120
and the lack of love
for the places we share.

00:49:13.880 --> 00:49:17.760
So, quickly… The Market.

00:49:17.800 --> 00:49:21.080
The market that has transformed
housing into pure merchandise

00:49:21.080 --> 00:49:24.760
to make money, it has
destroyed architecture,

00:49:24.800 --> 00:49:28.360
at least the domestic one.

00:49:28.640 --> 00:49:31.800
Then, the idea of city.
The market goes faster,

00:49:31.800 --> 00:49:34.760
the market makes the
streets to reach the plots,

00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:41.200
and the plots to get the highest number
of homes to be able to sell them.

00:49:41.200 --> 00:49:49.360
If you look at the Ensanche, it
is full of architecture with soul.

00:49:49.400 --> 00:49:52.720
Because in the past
a house was heritage.

00:49:52.720 --> 00:49:54.720
Nowadays houses
are built and sold.

00:49:54.760 --> 00:49:57.440
And whoever builds them,
washes their hands of it after.

00:49:57.440 --> 00:50:00.920
It is merchandise,
housing is merchandise.

00:50:00.960 --> 00:50:03.960
There is the concept of
luxury, very standard,

00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:09.000
because standard is cheaper
to build, standard is...

00:50:09.000 --> 00:50:10.880
People look for what
they already know.

00:50:10.920 --> 00:50:15.360
This current visual culture,

00:50:15.400 --> 00:50:19.600
in this sense, does some damage
to the identities of each place,

00:50:19.680 --> 00:50:23.880
which almost in the end, is what
gives richness to the world.

00:50:23.880 --> 00:50:28.480
Then you find things thanks
to all the diffusion of images

00:50:28.520 --> 00:50:31.480
that you no longer know
where they are from,

00:50:31.520 --> 00:50:34.160
if they are from here or
they are from another place.

00:50:34.200 --> 00:50:40.360
In this sense there is as an
absolute globalization of identity,

00:50:40.360 --> 00:50:44.840
a very diluted identity,
already part of the whole.

00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:47.000
And it is vulgarized,

00:50:47.000 --> 00:50:53.160
and you find the same luxury
standards in all parts of the world,

00:50:53.200 --> 00:50:56.760
It is a vulgar architecture
that responds to a market.

00:50:56.760 --> 00:50:59.360
A market which the only thing
that wants is now, now, now.

00:50:59.400 --> 00:51:03.480
Life in itself takes on speed

00:51:03.520 --> 00:51:05.760
and this is why there's
talk of uncertainty,

00:51:05.760 --> 00:51:09.600
because we have to get
used to going into a world

00:51:09.600 --> 00:51:13.240
that seems to be going
at a higher speed,

00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:18.880
things can't be taken for
granted or stabilized,

00:51:18.920 --> 00:51:21.320
because this is over, let’s say.

00:51:21.360 --> 00:51:24.280
The world is a changing world,

00:51:24.320 --> 00:51:29.200
and so we have to learn to live
with this continuous change.

00:51:29.240 --> 00:51:34.640
This is really a very
substantial change,

00:51:34.680 --> 00:51:38.000
because what we have to do is to
learn to think in another way.

00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:40.000
Probably, we will be in an era,

00:51:40.040 --> 00:51:42.480
as has been said,
of 1,000 plateaus,

00:51:42.520 --> 00:51:47.800
1,000 different premises and all
good and all bad at the same time.

00:51:47.880 --> 00:51:54.560
It is a moment of search and
conflict rather than clear solutions.

00:51:54.560 --> 00:52:00.200
And our worth as architects,
basically, is this ability to imagine.

00:52:00.760 --> 00:52:04.960
Because when we talk about ideas,
these are very magical things,

00:52:05.000 --> 00:52:07.720
that come from a whole
mixture of chemistry

00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:10.360
that is very difficult to know,

00:52:10.400 --> 00:52:12.920
but that is not work in any way.

00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:16.320
It is richer, it
is more complex,

00:52:16.360 --> 00:52:23.600
and that I like to say that it
is architecture's patrimony.

00:52:23.640 --> 00:52:30.240
What gives value to architecture
is this ability of dreaming,

00:52:30.280 --> 00:52:35.760
of imagining and then having
the background to carry out,

00:52:35.800 --> 00:52:39.680
to make this dream a reality.

00:52:39.720 --> 00:52:45.440
It is tremendous; it is to go
from intangible to tangible.

00:52:46.040 --> 00:52:50.600
There is a tale by García Márquez
called "I rent myself to dream".

00:52:50.640 --> 00:52:56.280
I believe that architects can
feel reflected in that title.

00:52:56.320 --> 00:52:58.160
They are people
who rent themselves

00:52:58.200 --> 00:53:00.040
to dream the dreams of
others, not their own.

00:53:00.080 --> 00:53:02.640
It is not only to dream
what the other dreams,

00:53:02.680 --> 00:53:05.480
or to put words to the dreams of
another, to the client's dream,

00:53:05.520 --> 00:53:10.480
but even to dream what the client
has not even thought about dreaming.

00:53:10.480 --> 00:53:14.000
I think the architect's greatest
enemy is always narcissism,

00:53:14.040 --> 00:53:15.800
to speak in the first person.

00:53:15.800 --> 00:53:19.480
I forbid this to my students. I
don't let them use the first person.

00:53:19.520 --> 00:53:22.160
I don't care what
you want or desire,

00:53:22.200 --> 00:53:25.280
what matters to me is if this
is necessary, if it is useful,

00:53:25.280 --> 00:53:27.760
if that satisfies
the wishes of others,

00:53:27.800 --> 00:53:30.240
but your wishes
are not important.

00:53:30.280 --> 00:53:32.320
Your vital project
is not important.

00:53:32.360 --> 00:53:36.560
The important thing is
that you serve others.