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This idea of enjoyment is important.
Sometimes a very cheap wine, a simple wine,
is very interesting for a particular moment.
Everybody remembers special occasions
when they drank a wine that was not very
good in terms of punctuation but was amaz-
ing for the situation.
JH: Yes, that’s like discovering a detail of a
building that fascinates you and catches your
attention in an otherwise anonymous or even
banal piece of architecture: an unexpected
color, a junction of unlikely elements, a sud-
den smell… Those things can be very reward-
ing, make you happy for a moment because
such moments are yours – only yours. They
appear and become real through your own
and specific creative energy.
ET: The Spanish philosopher Ortega y
Gasset used to divide people into collec-
tors and hunters. I think the position of the
owner of Atrio, José Polo, who is making an
incredible collection of wine, is interesting.
However, I prefer to be a hunter: if there is a
good wine, I have to drink it; if there is a good
building, I have to enjoy it. In architecture
it is similar: there are architects who collect
buildings and others who think that every
project is a challenge and who try to hunt
new perspectives in their way of thinking.
JH: Being a hunter sounds sexier… but I
agree that hunting and collecting are two
main vectors in human behavior. I also al-
ways saw myself as a hunter in contrast to
the collecting obsession of my brother who has
been piling up old photographs his whole life.
Over so many years working as an architect you
inevitably collect a lot, maquettes, drawings,
plans etc. In other words you can never fully
avoid piling up a lot of stuff, a lot of ‘waste.’
Maybe it is not really collecting but you cannot
get rid of it, you have to keep it, archive it,
prepare it like dead insects in a natural history
museum. I prefer my table to be totally empty,
with no objects on it, but it fills up again and
again. These are all specific patterns and obses-
sions everyone has and this will be reflected in
the kind of architecture that you do. Architecture
is very psychological. It tells so much about who
you are, even as an architect. If we walk through
your building we can discover a lot about your
personality, and you cannot avoid it.
ET: Indeed, but this building is also full of life.
It is interesting to see how cooking, collecting
wines, architecture… how all these things create
their own atmosphere.
«There are architects
who collect buildings
and others who think
that every building
is a challenge and
who try to hunt new
perspectives in their
way of thinking»
