2327. Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea. Vestíbulo.

Querida Cristina,

"Estoy quizás más preocupado con la articulación

de los volúmenes y de las plantas, pero sin olvidar la

técnica constructiva. La decisión del color depende

de muchas cosas y se necesita tiempo para decidir;

no decides desde el principio si una cosa será blanca

o verde. El color puede llegar con el tiempo y depende

muchas veces del material." (Alvaro Siza)

Besos,

R 

2317. Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea. Santiago de Compostela.

 

Querida Cristina,

"La relación entre un edificio y sus función 

necesita ser mucho menos esquemática y formal

si quieres producir buena arquitectura." 

(Alvaro Siza)

Besos,

R

2292. Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea

 

Dear Joe,

"As much as poetry and literature, architecture is

about relationships between things and shifts

from one to the others." (Alvaro Siza Vieira)

Regards,

R

2254. Fire Station. Vitra Campus. Weil am Rhein. Germany.

 

Dear Lauren,

"There was no landscape, so we had to invent one.

It was an un-place we had to make into a place."

(Zaha Hadid)

Best,

R

2243. Tango Mäntyniemi

 

Dear Aino,

"Reima's mother had been foretold that her son would

be an architect and her daughter an artist. The predictions

came true." (Raili Pietilä)

Sincerely,

R

2108. Greater Columbus Convention Center

 

Dear Peter,

"Our design is at once familiar and quite unfamiliar.

It suggests the rail yards that once occupied the site,

nearby highway ribbons, and overlays of the fiber optic

cables of the information age" (Peter Eisenman) 

Sincerely,

R

1878. Monte Carasso, Ticino, Switzerland

 

Dear Aurelio,

"What's gradually been created in Monte Carasso is a
small town, built out of an assortment of pieces. For
Luigi Snozzi to have had the opportunity to work in the
same area for so many years is something possible only
under very special historical conditions"
(Guillermo Vazquez Consuegra)

Respectfully,
R

1571. Nueva catedral de Managua, Nicaragua

Querido Walter,

Me ha costado algunos años encontrarla pero al fin he
conseguido una postal de la Catedral Metropolitana de la
Purísima Concepción, aunque como tu me dijistes muchos la conocen como "la chichona". He leido que en la explanada de afuera se pueden congregar hasta 100,000 personas mirando hacia el altar exterior que tiene esta interesante catedral.

Un abrazo hermano, y te veo el lunes.
R

1468. Stadtteilbibliothek Münster

Dear Jan,

"In my opinion what is necessary is a wider cultural re-validation, a new mythology of the physical, the material" (Peter Wilson)

Best,
R

1438. Mäntyniemi, Helsinki, Finland

Dear Osmo,

"My ideas do not progress: they move around like clouds over the archipelago of the architectural ideas of modernism." (Reima Pietilä)

Best,
R

1284. Cádiz. Torre de Telecomunicaciones

Querido Carlos Cano,

"Que tengo un amor en La Habana
y el otro en Andalucía,
no te he visto yo a tí, tierra mía,
más cerca que la mañana
que apareció en mi ventana
de La Habana colonial
to Cádiz, la Catedral, La Viña y El Mentidero...
Y verán que no exagero
si al cantar la habanera repito:
La Habana es Cádiz con mas negritos,
Cádiz, La Habana con más salero"

(Antonio Burgos-Habaneras de Cádiz)

Agradecido,
R

985. Tours. Palais des Congres Le Vinci

Dear Hans,

Near the city of Tours in Amboise is Clos Lucé, the 
mansion where Leonardo da Vinci died. Jean Nouvel's
Vinci Conference Center resembles a gigantic spacecraft
of long and inmaterial windows, ready to take off.
An intriguing machine that Leonardo could have designed
as one of the the numerous machines he envisioned in his
life.

Bon voyage.
R

926. Lisboa. Centro Cultural de Belem

Caro Ludovico,
 
"Construction is an assembly of different technologies, that are technically placed on different levels" 

(Vittorio Gregotti)

Saluti,
R

863. Helsinki, Mantyniemi

Dear Kaisa,

"This is my trick: to move the border of imaginable abstraction as far away as possible. That way I make myself space to roam in, and can also gain access to 

some stuff which doesn't fit over on the other side. I 

place myself in between: it would be a mistake to 

take a stand on either side" (Reima Pietilä)

Best regards.

R

618. Nimes, La Mediatheque (Carre d'Art)

Dear Alison,

"It is a personal belief that quality is an attitude of mind
and quite independent of the actual material in question
-whether brick, concrete, wood, paper, steel, aluminum,
stone or precious metal. It is more a matter of respect
and loving care, whether on-site or on the factory floor"
(Norman Foster)

Best,
R

552. Nederlands Architectuurinstituut

Dear Joel,

The Netherlands Architecture Institute in Amsterdam is
dedicated to the preservation and documentation of this
country's architectural heritage. It is also open to possible
contributions and suggestions from international designers.

Best.
R

124. Ricola-Europa SA Production and Storage building, Mulhouse-Brunnstatt, France

Dear Eliel,

The translucent printed panels on this storage building,
recall textiles, like the inner padding of a box. Besides
the building form recalls a cardboard box with open flaps.
When daylight diminishes the printing is barely visible
from outside and the opposite when it is dark outside.

Regards.
R