Converging views on Nordic architecture

The book "Converging Views on Nordic Architecture" begins with the prologue written by Jonathan Foote and the introduction by Nacho Ruiz Allén, in which he states that the conversations took place in 2021 in three different meetings, managing to bring together a group of Spanish architects from different generations and territories. The book is made up of three chapters and each one is divided into three sections; Two of the sections collect the reflections on a topic by two or three architects and the last section is a conversation between them.


Interior pages. Converging views on Nordic architecture.

In the first chapter, Ángela García de Paredes and Ignacio García Pedrosa comment on "Journey to the North", reporting that their first trip began by seeing photographs and studying the plans of Nordic works but, with their physical journey, they managed to delve into architecture and learn certain principles. In the section on "The Fire of Muuratsalo" Xavier Ros Majó acknowledges that he has never visited the house of Alvar and Elissa Aalto although he comments on what caught his attention the most about the house, the patio. The final conversation, "Essential depth" between the aforementioned architects, discusses their approach to Nordic architecture, how travel allows them to know and recognize, and how Nordic architects have delved into Mediterranean culture to carry out projects in the area. In addition to the use of tradition and craftsmanship as the main elements of to project and the use of the construction process as an expressive tool.


Interior pages. Converging views on Nordic architecture.

The second chapter begins with "Praise to the North" by José Ignacio Linazasoro, where he comments on some of his discoveries while traveling and associates each of his trips with a musical score. Irene Pérez Piferrer and Jaume Mayol Amengual discuss the section “Discovering the evidence” where they identify everything as unknown and set the guidelines for dealing with it. The “Fragmented Matter” conversation between these architects begins with a comparison between John Utzon's studio and a Le Corbusier home, how Can Lis' traditional materials generate a relationship between wholeness and fragmentation and provide a relationship with the context through construction through traditional processes and with the use of local materials. Furthermore, they highlight the sensitivity of Nordic architects in the care of details with a perspective from the inside and outside of the home and present architecture as a liturgy adapted to the use of the building, even in a home.


Interior pages. Converging views on Nordic architecture.

The third and final chapter narrates Luis Martínez Santa-María's reflection on "Journey to Muuratsalo in seven notes followed by an epilogue." A reflection on how the experimental house designed by Alvar Aalto and Elissa Aalto adapts to the forest, changing its scale and going from a height almost of the trees to a human height. Francisco Cifuentes Utrero, in "Houses and Chapels", comments on how Jørn Utzon defined the Can Lis house as a room with a curved sofa that embraced the family as if the living room were the main and essential nucleus of the home. Finally, in "Vital Rhythms", Luis Martínez Santa-María and Francisco Cifuentes Utrero talk about how their interest in Nordic architecture was awakened due to their professors at the university and how later when traveling to those countries, they were surprised by the relationship that the Nordic architects established between their architecture and nature, always out of respect and admiration for it, without losing sight of the people who are going to inhabit said architecture.