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called him. “I would like to go for the last
time,” I said, as if saying that I was going
with my final academic assignment. With
his glasses on, Rafael skimmed through it
without uttering a word. Then he just said:
“I’ll go see it.” He fulfilled this two or three
years later, but for me it marked the end of
a period.
JCS: Seen from outside, it was a clear
turning point. A new phase began, with a
change of chip. Débora came into the pic-
ture as partner in work and life, and your
practice began a strong period with two
pieces, two formidable icons. And I can say
that I have lived in both: The Truffle and
Hemeroscopium. These were two reference
points, two ways of understanding things.
There was a duplicity of innovation, of re-
search…
AGA: Actually, everything started in the
second project we were to carry out in San-
tiago de Compostela, the offices for SGAE
(General Society of Authors and Publish-
ers). We worked on it as architects, engi-
neers, and builders. And it was there that
we truly began to enjoy architecture. This
was something that had been lacking in our
early works, so we now decided that from
there onwards, our architecture could only
survive if we built it ourselves. The decision
reduced our stock of clients substantially,
but broadened our horizons in terms of what
architecture was, and of what it was to be
an architect. On these principles we built
up our model for work and professional
practice, and thanks to this, we were able
to carry out those two buildings. There we
were faced with a dilemma between artistry
and construction. We were excited about the
idea of the systemic and logical nature of
prefabrication and components to assemble,
which made execution fast and efficient,
but within an artistic project. That is, we
wanted to define prefabrication as some-
thing capable of yielding a highly emotive
building, brand new and never boring in
the manner of ill-understood fabrication.
These two works, undertaken simultane-
ously, opened up two horizons for us which
we have never renounced since, and which
though seemingly contradictory, go by the
same philosophy.
JCS: Your work is much influenced by the
art world. Through your family you have
lived in a musical and culturally artistic
atmosphere. You had the opportunity to
build an atelier for Manolo Valdés and work
with him. You also have the influence of
Eduardo Chillida’s material world, albeit
manipulated, appropriated, maneuvered…
Do you think there’s some seed here?
AGA: One thing I have always admired in
artists – something very prosaic and basic –
is that for them to work, they don’t need a
commission. For them, work is work. They
get up to work, and if they manage to pres-
ent an exhibition here or raise a monumental
building there, it’s circumstantial. That’s
what I have learned from all the artists I have
known. I learned that these freedoms are the
fuel of work. This is very important because
for architects who work on commission and
only on commission, it must be very hard to
keep up a creative tension.
JCS: Creativity is not commissioned.
AGA: Exactly, freedom to produce, to fabri-
cate… Of course there has to be some payment,
and paying for a building is not the same
as paying for a canvas. But there is plenty
of middle ground to explore. We have never
stopped working, not even during the years
when no commission was coming. Then, on
an aesthetic, material, or spatial level, all
the references you mention are direct and
automatic, are part of my culture and my
circumstances. Débora and I always say in
jest that we love Christo and Jeanne-Claude
because they reject the idea of the commis-
sion. Commissions are in themselves very
creative, they are part of the process.
JCS: After this came the United States.
You won a competition to head MIT’s
POPlab, which allowed you a change of
location and environment, a total change
of life. Again two paths appear in your
architecture: that of fabrication and indus-
trialization, like Mies van der Rohe when
he moved to the US and developed a new
way of building based on steel, but with
concrete in our case; and a second path,
much more expressive, like the pieces in
Montana. Finally, all this resulted in the
world of WoHo and that of Ca’n Terra,
which ultimately involved working with
nature. Here the comparison would instead
be with Le Corbusier, who started out with
“One thing I have always
admired in artists is that for
them to work, they don’t
need a commission“
