C 14 61
what was happening in the world.
AGP: We had the opportunity to meet
the pre-war architects thanks to my father,
José María García de Paredes, architect and
friends with many of them. Outside the School
we were close to José Luis Sert, who always
encouraged us and taught us many things
parallel to architecture – painting, music…
Through Sert we met Miró, for example.
FDC: You graduated in 1982, but the
office was set up in 1990. What happened
during those years?
IGP: We started working with Ángela’s
father, an architect at the height of his pro-
fessional maturity. He had a small studio
with a lot of prestige among colleagues.
After studying in Madrid and his stay in
Rome, where he met Carvajal, he began a
brilliant career, with very interesting proj-
ects that earned him the National Architec-
ture Award. He had always wanted to keep
control of his work, so he was never really
interested in expanding his office. When we
had just completed our studies he received
several important public commissions, this
was right after opening the Manuel de Falla
Auditorium in Granada – the first concert
hall built in Spain after Barcelona’s Palau
de la Música of 1908. The building had a
major repercussion because it focused on
the relationship with the place and with the
constructive tradition of the materials. As
a result he was commissioned to build the
National Auditorium, and that is when we
joined his studio. The collaboration lasted
ten years and ended not by choice but by fate,
with José María’s premature passing. We
found ourselves in a strange situation: it was
our moral and professional duty to finish his
work, so we launched our own career later.
We started out entering competitions. The
first one was Europan, which we won; and
that is when our independent work began.
FDC: Your Europan project is very spe-
cific. As young architects I think you drew
inspiration from Alvar Aalto.
IGP: He is a constant in our work. There
is a continuous presence of references that
arise, not deliberately, but they’re there. In
the case of the two housing developments,
there is a clear relationship with Aalto’s
project, but not a direct reference to him.
There we extended the streets establish-
ing an undulatory mechanism that gave
the city the continuity we think it needs.
Aalto’s project, however, is not an urban
project but a landscaping one. Interest-
ingly, landscaping is used to address an
urban continuity issue.
FDC: When looking at works like the
Valdemaqueda Town Hall, I think about
Aalto and about your relationship with the
Iberian world. Perhaps Aalto’s influence
comes through Siza and Moneo.
IGP: I think we can talk about a spe-
cial relationship between north and south.
The relationship between the north and the
Mediterranean is almost a matter of sym-
metry. Peripheral countries like the Nordic
