Alberto Campo Baeza

A comprehensive survey of the work of a master of modernist design today. Alberto Campo Baeza, one of contemporary architecture s most distinguished voices, is renowned for a body of work that exudes the power of radical simplicity. The architectural ideas expressed in his buildings have ranged in scale from such small but beautiful residential structures as the Ture?gano, Gaspar, and De Blas houses to cultural facilities such as Andalucia s Museum of Memory in Granada, an addition to his earlier achievement, the Caja General Bank Headquarters. All share an uncompromising dedication to simple composition and demonstrate the ways in which he so brilliantly deploys disciplined restraint to achieve architectural silence in the face of the clamor of the modern city. This monograph features projects spanning four decades of international architectural practice. Contributions by Richard Meier and David Chipperfield offer critical commentary on Campo Baeza s persistent quest for beauty and relevance through his adherence to simplicity and a deeply felt devotion to modernist principles of architecture.

Hardcover in clamshell box: Architects reveal the keys to Architecture in their drawings, their floor plans, sections and also in their writings. It is important to appreciate the concise texts of Mies Van der Rohe or the more passionate expressions of Le Corbusier. And that is how I would like these texts, published here today, to be understood. Alberto Campo Baeza (born Valladolid, Spain, 1946) is one of the most important architects of the modern period. The Built Idea presents a series of seminal texts in which he conveys his most deeply-held architectural ideas and convictions, exploring and explaining his foundational influences and subjects such as the importance of light, the work of his contemporaries, and the future of architecture, as well as accounts of his own work and personal anecdotes from a rich and successful life in architecture. To use words that express one s intentions clearly is not just a convenience for architects. One wants to let people know the meaning behind the things that are being made. My aim in publishing these texts is precisely that. This book also includes a photographic documentation of Campo Baeza s greatest works along with architectural sketches, plans and models to provide a privileged insight into one of the greatest architectural minds working today. And the reasoning on which one bases one s work in their attempt at Architecture is what is going to be reflected here in these texts, some of it consciously, some unconsciously. Realizing the ideas expressed in these words in built works is of course the best proof that the ideas are valid and the words true. "

C mo poder transmitir con claridad que lo que los arquitectos hacemos es construir ideas. Hay un dibujo de J rn Utzon, el maestro, que muestra una persona que para escribir dibujar? moja la pluma en el tintero de su abierta cabeza. Alguien que escribe-dibuja-construye con la cabeza, con la tinta de la raz n. Alguien, el arquitecto, que construye ideas. Prometo buscar una imagen similar que sea capaz de expresar nuestra propuesta de la Arquitectura como un Pensar con las manos.

Los escritos que aqu se recogen son fruto de un tiempo de maduraci n a lo largo de estos ltimos a os. Algunas de las ideas que aqu aparecen se han plasmado parcialmente en otros textos ya publicados, y han tenido su ltima redacci n y se "afinaron" en el Curso Acad mico 2010-2011 en Avery Library de Columbia University en Nueva York. La Universidad Polit cnica de Madrid, y m s en concreto su Rector Javier Uceda y su Vicerrector Emilio M nguez, me concedi un a o sab tico para desarrollar este tranajo en Columbia University con el apoyo de Mark Wigley como Dean y Kenneth Frampton como Ware Professor.