Autobiografía Fisac

110 x 180 mm
112 pages
Design: Setanta

One of the most experimental and influential Spanish architects of recent history tells his own story in this previously unpublished autobiography. A wonderful and moving narrative—full of humor and humanism—recounts his formative years, the relentless search for meaning in his architecture, and the major influences on his practice: popular traditions, Nordic organicism, the Japanese house, and the Alhambra.

Miguel Fisac (Daimiel, Ciudad Real, 1913 - Madrid, 2006) was one of ten architects who graduated from the School of Architecture in the class of 1942, a generation tasked with rebuilding a country devastated by war at a time when Franco's regime rejected modernism in favor of historicism. Fisac, however, escaped this trend with an open-minded and cosmopolitan approach. He found his path at the intersection of spirituality, different spatial conceptions, and the pursuit of constructive honesty.

This volume adds essential and complementary materials to his 1970 autobiographical writings, offering a deeper understanding of his professional journey: a photographic journey through his concrete works from 1971 to 1984 (a material to which he brought warmth and a tactile quality through his "bone beams" and flexible formwork), a brief note on one of his most famous constructions, the now-demolished Pagoda, and his words when receiving the Gold Medal of Architecture in 1994. "I hold no lofty opinion of my work; in fact, I neither want to nor should judge it, for better or worse. I have—and I believe this is a good thing—an acute and demanding critical sense, especially when it comes to my own work."