Josep Lluís Mateo

Whereas in our recent past the paradigm by which architecture was measured was the city, now, the collective reference surrounding our design activity is the relation with nature.Sustainability as an economic but also a moral and political argument is clearly a consensus in our societies. It is a frequently abstract, formless argument with religious overtones (appealing more to faith than to reason), utilizable in political verbalism and which drifts easily towards engineering technocracy.In this context, a vindication of the presence of the four elements (earth, water, air, fire) by means of which the pre-Socratic philosophers envisaged humankinds relation with nature seems extremely useful to the discipline today.The elements relate us to nature as a physical phenomenon that can be experienced with the senses and is therefore directly connected with architecture, which, as we know, addresses the real construction of the world, the alchemic operation that turns concepts into material.The elements save our activity from the pure mathematic abstraction on which technology is based.

Ref. G72144. 16x23. 224 pág. Fotos en color. Texto en inglés. Arquitectura. 24-I. 0. 27

Vision of recent buildings and projects from one of the most outstanding European architectural practices, also presented from a multilayered critic panel. to 2015, divided in types and thoroughly explained.Presenting architectural works at the time when they were been done is a critical question to understand, by specific practices, trends into our contemporarity. This book presents a full description of the projects by reelaborated materials (plans, texts, photos) producing a network able to transmit the qualities of the real architecture. Di erent contributions are theoretical. Coming from preeminent academicians, expand the arguments passing from the single cases to a category.

According to natural scientific logics, the size of creatures in nature is strictly linked to their form. A fly for example possesses a form that can absolutely not be increased. Should this still occur, the hence emerging monster would collapse, because his supporting elements, although proportionally increased, would not be capable of carrying the overweight. If we consider architecture as a phenomenon that follows the laws of the physical world, size and scale appear as initial conditions, under which architecture has to be pondered. This volume of Architectural Papers gathers a series of data, arguments and projects produced at our chair surrounding this theme. It hence represents material that was collected during this process of learning, although it aspires to reach a wider public. To teach (and to learn) architecture is not only about transferring knowledge but, in my opinion, primarily about producing knowledge. The large dimension of the transformations in our built environment that globalization has pandered represents a new methodological paradigm the project has to be confronted with. Here some questions related to planning will be treated, defending its role more as a structural one and less as a formalizing one, with the autonomous presence (although interrelated) of singular objects, which in our times appear recharged with great responsibility and which can no longer be based on already assumed continuities as maybe they could have in former times. A substantial part of this volume is composed of reflections regarding the European high building, as a new type more and more present in our everyday reality. To teach and to produce architecture means to participate in a wide dialogue, in which multiple voices, references, interlocutors have to interrelate. This book attempts to condensate a moment of this intellectual construction.

''El límite entendido como espacio de jun-tura entre diferentes realidades es realmente el espacio contemporáneo con el que nosotros -y, en concreto, mi generación de arquitectos- hemos tenido que trabajar en numerosas ocasiones: un espacio marcado por muchas realidades que actuan simultaneamente entre si. Un espacio que puede ser a la vez rural y urbano, construido y no construido. En este caso, el limite es un punto de articulacion, un punto tensado por diferentes realidades simultaneas que operan sobre el; este es el espacio donde se producen la actuacion, la construccion, la reflexion y el crecimiento contemporaneos; un espacio diferente del espacio central, homogeneo y constante que, en principio, carece de tales tensiones''.

Visión de edificios y proyectos recientes de uno de los más destacados estudios de arquitectura europea, también presentado desde una panel crítico de capas múltiples  La presentación de las o

Josep Lluís Mateo is one of Spain''s most influential architects in architecture today. This book brings together his recent projects, his influences, his references together with material from interviews and a wealth of images. It is, in a nutshell, his work philosophy. Conversations, reflections and projects completed in the last five years are presented as realities and actions, interpreted through this concept, which can be contemplated as infinity of individual forms of contacting with reality and acting upon it. For Josep Lluis Mateo, the crux of this work is to analyse, from the perspective of his unique work, the state of issues and situations today in architecture and to interact accordingly with exterior space.

El mundo se está fusionando en un solo sistema global de mercancías, gente e información. Este libro explora los fenómenos sociales, culturales y económicos de la globalización desde el punto de vista de la vivienda. La cátedra de Arquitectura y Diseño de la ETH de Zúrich examina los últimos 25 años de evolución de la vivienda. Este libro ofrece un criticismo histórico con los proyectos como protagonistas. Las tipologías de vivienda se han escogido como prototipos arquitectónicos contemporáneos. La selección de proyectos muestra los proyectos de viviendas más innovadoras e influyentes para proponer nuevas e importantes pautas para la arquitectura doméstica.

In the past, buildings and other constructions representing singular moments for the community were called monuments. Their origin was expression of power, celebration of ritual or collective affirmation. In the contemporary world, a project that aspires to be exceptionally expressive is commonly called an icon. The publication begins with a series of general texts on themes that vary but all share a common critical look at the role of the iconic on the recent architecture scene. Some of the texts were produced at a seminal symposium organized by the Chair of Professor Josep Lluis Mateo.

The CCIB (Barcelona International Convention Center) is one of the main structures housing the 2004 Forum of Cultures and one of the anchors of the new Diagonal Mar district. It is not properly a building but rather a set of objects with different functions, clients, and programs, together with a set of predefined bands that channel this plurality. A hotel and office building rise up on the site's northern edge, large exhibition and convention halls are located on the central strip, and public lobbies, restaurants, and small conference halls face the sea and gardens on the southern side. A combination of massive concrete and high-precision, large-span steel, the structure is simultaneously conventional and monstrous, banal and superhuman. With an introduction by Aaron Betsky, Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, this publication tells the story of the CCIB through the voices of architects, engineers, clients, consultants, and artists who have contributed to its making.

Nuestro pasado reciente, complejo, ha estado marcado por las repercusiones de la pandemia (cerrazón, aislamiento, distancia, inmovilidad…), claramente influyentes en nuestra actividad, que pide inter