Madrid: a beautiful, but hidden city…
Under the title “The Castelar building and Rafael de La-Hoz”, AEPPAS20 has just started the first tour in a series of different representative buildings of the Spanish architecture in the 20th century, for the purpose of reclaiming the importance of integration and recognition of architecture in the city and urging institutions and companies to contribute to its restoration.
Organised by the Spanish Association for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of the Twentieth Century (AEPPAS20) under the title: “Tours in the Spanish architecture on the 20th century. The work and the author”, this first tour started in the auditorium of the Castelar building and will focus on symbolic, already rehabilitated buildings in Madrid.
After the guided tours in the building – overwhelmed by applications – a conference took place in which architect Rafael de La-Hoz, in charge of rehabilitating the building, famous journalist and sociologist Rafael Fraguas, Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker awards, Luis Zurera, lawyer and partner of Pérez-Llorca (currently located in the building) and Jerónimo Junquera, architect, author of rehabilitation projects such as the Zarzuela Hippodrome participated. The colloquium was moderated by the AEPPAS20’s Chairman, architect Fernando Espinosa de los Monteros and his vice-president, Ramón de la Mata Gorostizaga, an architect as well.
The discussion started with an emotive tribute of Rafael de La-Hoz to his father’s memory, author of the building together with Gerardo Olivares in 1986; in his speech, De La-Hoz explained that training, above all for new generations, is essential to the recognition of architecture; Rafael Fraguas further observed that you cannot love anything if you don’t understand it and that we citizens have not been educated to understand architecture; he also said that Madrid has suffered for a long time from the lack of love of a series of counsellors and is now in need of state projects which promote an idea of the city. Martha Thorne added that Madrid must have a city “view” and that this view must come from politicians. She insisted on the fact that architecture creates city and underlined that support must be sought outside of our frontiers; according to architect Jerónimo Junquera, the challenge is “to design what is empty, not what is full, as emptiness is the space that generates the city”.
For more information:
Soledad de los Reyes
Communication
Phone: +34 (0) 917 453 500
Email: sreyes@rafaeldelahoz.com