After writing The Built Idea, Thinking with the Hands, Principia Architectonica, Poetica Architectonica and I want to be an architect, Alberto Campo Baeza presents his new book Varia Architectonica. In it, he continues the structure of the other books by publishing, together with texts of architectural theory, other diverse topics.
Varia Architectonica is a compilation of texts that contains Alberto Campo Baeza's thoughts on architecture, the architect and the works of architecture as well as art and history between others. In its introduction, Shut up, Listen, Campo explains how the intentions described in his previous books are still present in this one, emphasizing his desire to write with a clarity that philosopher Ortega could have required.

The book, of great teaching load, intends, as also The Built Idea intended in 1996, to analyze the architecture through the words and to explain the reasons why the author designs and builds. He explains this because, for him, the ideas behind the built forms the ones which transcend.
 

Introduction of Varia Architectonica by Alberto Campo Baeza

At my entry into the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, on November 30, 2014, many asked me about what I intended to do there, and my answer was always the same: shut up and listen. Be quiet for a long time, and listen carefully to others. Shut up and listen. For some time I have stuck a piece of paper next to my computer screen with these words: shut up, listen.

But being silence doesn't mean to stop thinking or writing or projecting. And so, here in this new book Varia Architectonica (2016), which is preceded The Built Idea (1996), Written 20 years ago!, Thinking with the Hands (2009), Principia Architectonica (2012), Poetica Architectonica (2014 ) and I want to be an architect (2015), many of the written and published texts were collected in this latter period.

And the intentions that I already had in the introductions of my previous books still stand. To be clear. The texts that are published together here today try to have the clarity that as a courtesy demanded philosopher Ortega. I want my writings and my work, always to have this clarity required by Ortega.

The order structure of those books is continued in this one, where together with the theoretical issues of architecture, regarding some architects and analyzing some works, various other texts are also published.

Some of the earlier books have already been translated into English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese and even into Chinese. And these days I said yes to the Serbian translation. And in some of these languages ​​they have already done several editions. When this has happened, besides giving thanks to heaven, I could not help but to think that my intention, a bit "ortegian", of being clear,has been fulfilled because I don't think anyone would read what that person can not understand. And it makes me think that these texts, with a large teaching load, are useful for those who read and study them. Hopefully, as I wish, also leads them to be happier.

And I repeat here what I already wrote in the introduction to the first edition of The Built Idea in 1996, that all these writings are an attempt to analyze the architecture in the light of the words, explain the reasons why and with what I understand that architecture should be done. The reasons that I project and build. Because the history of architecture, far from being a history of forms, is basically a history of ideas, of constructed ideas. The forms are destroyed over time, but the ideas remain, they are eternal.

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Varia Architectonica
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Alberto Campo Baeza
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Mairea Libros
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StockCero, S.A.
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Spain
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150x210 mm
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978-84-945209-9-0
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M-10265-2016
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Alberto Campo Baeza. Born in Valladolid (1946), where his grandfather was an architect, from the age of two he lived in CADIZ where he saw the LIGHT. From his father he inherited a spirit of ANALYSIS and from his mother the determination to be an ARCHITECT.

He lives in Madrid, where he moved to study Architecture. His first professor was Alejandro de la Sota, who instilled in him the ESSENTIAL architecture that he is still trying to erect. He is a PROFESSOR at the Madrid School of Architecture, ETSAM, where he has been a tenured professor for more than 25 years.

He has taught at the ETH in Zurich and the EPFL in Lausanne as well as the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. And in Dublin and Naples, Virginia and Copenhagen. And at the BAUHAUS in Weimar and at Kansas State University. He spent a year as a research fellow at COLUMBIA University in New York in 2001 and again in 2011. He has given many lectures and has received many awards like the TORROJA for his Caja Granada building. And he was awarded the Buenos Aires Biennial 2009 for his Nursery for Benetton in Venice and his MA Museum in Granada. He has recently been nominated by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the prestigious Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize of 2010.

His works have been widely recognized. From the single family houses Casa Turégano and Casa de Blas, both in Madrid, to Casa Gaspar, Casa Asencio and Casa Guerrero in Cádiz. And the Olnick Spanu House in Garrison, New York, the Centro BIT in Inca-Mallorca, the Caja de Granada Savings Bank and the MA, the Museum of Andalusian Memory, both in Granada, and a nursery for Benetton in Venice. And Between Cathedrals in Cádiz, and just recently a building for Offices in Zamora (2012). And the construction of the new Offices for Benetton in Samara, Russia, which is about to begin.

And more than 20 editions of a BOOK with his texts “LA IDEA CONSTRUÍDA” [THE BUILT IDEA] have been published in several languages. A fourth edition of “PENSAR CON LAS MANOS”, a second compilation of his writings, has just been published. And just now “PRINCIPIA ARCHITECTONICA”, a collection of his texts written during his sabbatical year at Columbia University in New York in 2011.

He believes in Architecture as a BUILT IDEA. And he believes that the principle components of Architecture are GRAVITY that constructs SPACE and LIGHT that constructs TIME.

He has exhibited his work in the CROWN HALL by Mies at Chicago’s IIT and at the PALLADIO Basilica in Vicenza. And in the Urban Center in New York. And at the Saint Irene Church in Istanbul. In 2009 the prestigious MA Gallery of Toto in Tokyo made an anthological exhibition of his work that in 2011 was in the MAXXI in Rome.

Act.>. 04-2012
 

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Published on: May 22, 2016
Cite: "Varia Architectonica by Alberto Campo Baeza" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/varia-architectonica-alberto-campo-baeza> ISSN 1139-6415
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