The constant research process, the lack of style or a work difficult to classify in a world always eager for recipes with which to pigeonhole everything and everyone, meant a distancing from the ability of both their own and the misnamed Western to understand the bright work of this architect.
It would have been enough recognize works such as the exceptional Tower of the Winds (now disassembled), his research on the nomadic woman and the contemporary condition of the architecture and its inhabitants, or the exceptional impression that Toyo Ito made when explaining the design, the tree structure of the Sendai Mediatheque, for have granted him years ago the prestigious Pritzker Prize.
Listening to him tell Sendai's project was to be aware of the change of conception in the way of proposing a project and realize, with the "bristly hair", of the great advance that supposed a proposal of these characteristics. A tension that was repeated when, after the first impression of the Tsunami two years ago, we all wondered how it would have endured the mythical structure of the Mediatheque and of course did not disappoint. Some pieces of false ceiling, some crystals and after one of the most important earthquakes this fragile building continued. The idea of the agile bamboo in front of the powerful oak was again won by the lightness.
Later came works of different profile, among them the library of Tama University. The design of the building using arches to build, organize, open and close space, were criticized by some for their formal component. In Europe only two magazines published this building, of course one was METALOCUS (num 021). There were few who understood the perfect execution of the building, the continuity between materials (concrete and glass) so that to pass a finger along said surface hardly supposed an almost imperceptible variation. The reiteration of those arches also generated a really surprising permeability of spaces. I remember how in a lecture, explaining the project that we had published, I commented on the desire they had in front of a building like that to go back to the library and study, study ...
Research is not always recognized, it has risks, it means not being pigeonholed, it means staying alive in the constant need to reinvent yourself, reinventing your own work every morning. Of course, this process of experimentation has its risks, responding to extreme needs is not always possible and perhaps our country is the best vademécum of works not achieved, in Madrid, Alicante or Barcelona, which also portrays the happy years of the Spanish Boom. The self-recognition of dissatisfaction, self-criticism so rare in this world of architecture made interpreting his words in some as an obstacle to obtain the aforementioned prize:
"I have designed architecture taking into account that it will be better if we get rid, even a little bit, of any limitations. However, when I finish a building, I realize with pain of my own disability. That inability becomes energy to tackle the next project. That is my creative process and, surely for that reason, my architecture will never have a fixed style and I will not be satisfied with any of my works".
In fact, all this explains that brilliant reaction in his country to reinvent himself with "Home for all", a project where with a group of Japanese architects he returned to the basics of architecture, the need to reinvent himself from scratch, recognizing the architecture as a social service. His ability to continue motivating new generations of architects allows to better understand than ever his nomadic wife and the necessary and deserved recognition that supposes the Pritzker Prize for Toyo Ito.
Txt.- José Juan Barba
