Cháchara y otras historias de arquitectura

138 x 210 mm
176 pages
Design: Setanta

Moisés Puente — architect, curator, essayist, translator — is responsible for some of the most renowned architecture collections published today. He is also a silent observer at many of the events, forums, and conferences that bring the sector together. "Theatrical and impatient, these gatherings are dominated by haste and self-promotion over the exchange of ideas." These acts of self-promotion, overloaded with sensational images, often lack meaningful debate, something the author finds both striking and concerning. "Where is the critical space?" The texts gathered here are a reaction to this fatigue over what the dictionary defines as "frivolous conversation," "a flood of useless words," and "trinkets, gadgets."

In these pages, Puente opens avenues of discussion by analyzing both revered milestones and contextualizing emerging values in contemporary architecture. From the successes and contradictions of Mies van der Rohe and Alejandro de la Sota, to the tragic gravity of Gordon Matta-Clark and the revolutionary ambition of Konstantin Melnikov. Smiljan Radić’s masquerade in Vilches, an unused shoe store by Paco Alonso, the construction of an oeuvre by Arquitectura-G, and Valerio Olgiati’s Palladian house share space with Aldo Rossi’s critiques and Reyner Banham’s analysis of Los Angeles. This panorama of projects and figures shapes an "anti-chatter" intended to invite public dialogue.

Moisés Puente (León, 1969) has built a career marked by constant reflection on architecture. After studying architecture in A Coruña, Rome, and Barcelona, he has been the architecture editor at Editorial Gustavo Gili since 1999. He currently directs 2G magazine and a collection of essays for the German publisher Walther König. He has published anthologies of texts by figures such as Alejandro de la Sota, Josep Llinàs, Olafur Eliasson, Aldo Rossi, Philip Ursprung, Smiljan Radić, Andrés Jaque, and Kersten Geers, as well as books of conversations with Mies van der Rohe, Jørn Utzon, and Gordon Matta-Clark, and monographs on the work of Mies and De la Sota. He curated the exhibition Miguel Fisac y Alejandro de la Sota: Miradas en paralelo (Museo ICO, 2016, with Carlos Asensio-Wandosell) and the ephemeral interventions Castillos y bodegones (2015, with David Bestué and Miquel Mariné), in which artists collaborated closely with architects. His publications have received several awards, and in 2010, he was awarded the FAD Prize for Thought and Criticism for his "broad, multifaceted, and rigorous personal work as an editor." In 2016, he founded his own publishing house, Puente Editores, focusing on essays about art and architecture.