Product Description

AA 46 VICENS-RAMOS

VICENS+RAMOS ARCHITECTS
IGNACIO VICENS AND JOSE ANTONIO RAMOS

Ed. Arquitecturas de Autor · T6ediciones
Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, Universidad de Navarra
2009, Pamplona
ISBN: 9788492409181

ARCHITECTURE FOR ALL TIMES

I won’t hide the fact that when confronting the task, quite a pleasant one as a matter of fact, of introducing this monograph I was first surprised by the disparate collection formed by the four works chosen by the authors; certainly well selected since they are a representative sample of the work developed by Vicens & Ramos, therefore it is not surprising that they belong to very differ- ent fields, that could be apparently contradictory or hardly concealable, like a luxurious villa and a simple parish: and if it is true that the combination is not frequent, is also coherent in that sense, since they are not common architects, nor is their architec- ture available for all pockets, metaphorically speaking, not in real terms.
On the one side, very few architects have thought so thoroughly about religious architecture, a field that seems to avoid moder- nity. Vicens & Ramos are among the few who seem to have found a valid way so it is logical that it appears.
On the other hand, there are no minor works in their path, done with a lesser effort, simply to fulfill a task; they aim to accom- plish the best possible architecture in every case, and it is there that the most diverse works find their connection, and nothing becomes contradictory, moreover, it is good to see so diverse things coming from the same drawing board.
A crematorium, a place prepared for the last goodbye to the remains of a beloved one, and a parish church, destined to serve as a meeting point between the Creator and the men waiting in Him, and to tighten the bonds between them as members of the community represented by the Church, certainly seem two works that although not having a common root, undoubtedly posses the same spirit, since they fundamentally deal with the needs sprouted by the higher instincts of the person, not looking only at the body and its dimensions and needs, but above all to those of their souls.
But the other two respond to very different requirements and that is why it could be shocking that they are collected in the same publication as those works which originate in the consideration of a material detachment from this world, perhaps the remem- brance of its banality and with it, the ephemeral aspect of man’s life and its possessions, together with others that seem to rati- fy the opposite: the pleasure of luxury and the transitory, materialized in a sophisticated dwelling, a true 20th century Madrilean palace, and the piece that became the studio’s contribution to the water exhibition in Zaragoza 2008, one of Spain’s latest grand superfluous architectural celebrations; belonging to those sort of events that suppose a categorical assertion of the ephemeral and an exaltation an jubilee of many trivial issues, with dull celebrations and liturgies, expectedly transcendental, attempting to attract the masses they are conceived for.
If we look closely to this works though, it becomes clear that the apparent contradiction in the selection is not so, on the con- trary, it becomes sort of a coherent response to the social reality hosting them; we could only speak about a contradiction if the architectural response provided would have been different from one case to the next, as if the different programmatic need would generate different degrees of architectural commitment, but that does not happen; few architects will exist that can understand and respond so well as they can simultaneously, with similar languages, to the higher spiritual aspirations and to the most vul- gar limitations of the contemporary society; a society that does not now limits when spending on the ephemeral, even squander, but that tries to solve in any possible way, through the minimum effort, the permanent and that which tends to the eternal; and that many times produces or believes it produces architecture or commits it for the first purpose while it solves the second through mere formality. Vicens & Ramos respond to that being equidistant from either detour, controlling the excessive and opti- mizing the scarce.
To make luxurious mansions is not very difficult if the means exist; what is difficult is to keep producing architecture with so many means, and make it comfortable without falling in the excess, or in the decorative or grandiloquent pastiche.
Responding to the spirit, instead, is not as simple even if the means are available; It is necessary to have the sensibility to under- stand what inhabitant does man’s spiritual life need, and afterwards it is necessary to know how to respond to the problem through functional and spatial architectural instruments, refusing the demiurgical temptation of searching for a solution based in the achievement of suggestion and emotion.
To accomplish both things at the same time with similar formal and esthetic resources is even more difficult.
Vicens & Ramos know how to do, and do, a rich architecture, but do not know how to do a frivolous architecture; they don’t want to do it; they know how to build, with magnanimous, but without squandering; it can seem incidental, but it isn’t, that the archi- tects have chosen to show to the passerby, the smaller elevation of the stone house, without pretentious displays, without mak- ing it look big or powerful, instead they undoubtedly value discretion, a virtue transmitted by Lopez Otero to his students, Car- vajal among them, Vicens’ master.