Quaderns d´Arquitectura

Quaderns d´Arquitectura i Urbanisme is the Catalonian Architect´s Association´s magazine and I happened to collaborate on a couple of instances while I was student of Architecture.

While I was doing my studies I was also working. The office I worked for the longest, as a student, was CLOUD9 by Enric Ruiz-Geli, and it was great fun. Enric was very generous with all of us, all very young and enthusiastic. So in the Spring of 2007 he took me and a Portuguese coworker to France on a business trip that included a Bless fashion show at the heliport of Tour Montparnasse in Paris 😊 and a visit to La Rochelle to meet Paul Virilio!!

I was invited to that trip because of my French 😊 Others went somewhere else… He also took us all to New York when we won the NY Aquarium Competition! Only the Venturis have been as generous as Enric was with all of us.

I was also collaborating at the time with Suite Magazine (I had interviewed Enric for it). So, when I asked him if he wouldn´t mind that I ask Virilio for an interview the morning before we left la Rochelle, he told me to go ahead! The picture I have with Virilio was taken by Enric himself.

It was great meeting for couple of days such a kind and intelligent human being. He had converted to Catholicism after meeting the Abate Pierre (being an old communist as he was) and he was a bit like an abate himself. Full of wisdom, tranquility, and lots of good humor.  

He liked young people and was very generous with me, considering I knew very little of his work really. I had read one book I think.  

The day before we had a wonderful 3 hour lunch with oysters (a local specialty) and it was the base for my questions the following day. Truth is, he loves to talk, and I just had to follow the conversation really.

When I arrived in Barcelona, Suite was not the best place for this very long interview and I contacted Quaderns, who were immediately interested.

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 The other issue of Quaderns for which I wrote something, was way earlier, on the occasion of an article on Alfons Soldevila´s Casa Translúcida in 2001. Since we did the video installation in there, right before the house was taken down, they became the “Closing Event Pictures” 😊

As the house was transferred to his studio in Badalona, Quaderns had an article with our pictures, and they asked me to write a little something to describe the event.