Opportunities come unannounced. A few years ago Adrià Goula spoke about that moment of change in an interview with Carlos Cámara and how he ended up driving his creative needs from architecture to photography: "The turning point was a couple of years later, while working in Paris at Yves Lion's office. The photographer who usually worked for him wasn't able to take pictures of the French Embassy in Beirut. In the office they knew about my hobby, and after a couple of tests I was sent for a week to Beirut to make the report. After a few days there, when the report was more or less solved, I was certain I preferred that. The photographs were very successful, and the project won the Equerre d'Argent, it was the year 2005. It was published in newspapers and magazines and was in the cover page in several cases. All of that helped dispel my doubts."
In only eight years, his success is so clear in Barcelona and Catalonia that is difficult to find an architect who didn't photograph one of his buildings with Adrià Goula. His way of working made him a regular photographer among well-known Catalan architects. With clear ideas, photographing architecture, Adrià Goula tries to suggest the actions that take place in a three-dimensional experience of architecture spaces, creating images that are able to show a building when it can't be experienced live.
His training as an architect allows him to get closer and interpret architecture in a different way. His language, using definite frames, controlling lights and looking at the image's composition, lets him create visions and approaching lines with which he engages the viewer and makes him feel he is more than just a viewer.
Beyond commissions, Adrià Goula developed personal projects. From these, I would like to point out one that we published not long ago, "Murmurs i Compressions", which shows different ways of talking about the same thing, and could be interpreted as an aesthetic of complexity. In this work we saw two crossed languages with the same level of abstraction, on one hand, inert natures, captured from built textures, and on the other, still-life frozen moments. In this works, we can see the instruments used in architectural photography: texture, geometry and tonal range. Elements to create images that vibrate between the abstract and the figurative.
His work has been exhibited in many galleries such as Salon de Thorigny in Paris, Atélier Dartois in Bordeaux or Kowasa Gallery, Coac, The Architecture Gallery in Barcelona. In addition to his numerous awards, he has published a book of his work, "De-Construcción" (Fundación Esteyco, 2011), in which through forms, the capturing of traces and a constant discourse on memory and time, Adrià Goula shows us images of elements in construction with some elements in demolition process, creating interesting parallelisms.
Text by.- José Juan Barba. Dr. Arquitecto.
