Una casa fuera de sí

110 x 180 mm
96 pages
Design: Setanta 

In 1977, Frank O. Gehry and Berta Isabel Aguilera bought a house in Santa Monica with the intention of making it their home. She wanted to preserve it, but he felt unable to live in such an unremarkable building. With very limited resources, Gehry devised a project to reverse the emotional exhaustion of the house and challenge the domesticity of the neighborhood.

The result of the renovation outraged the neighbors while fascinating artists and architects alike. Gehry had wrapped the original house in a cheeky, unorthodox structure made from cheap materials, dragging asphalt all the way into the kitchen and openly displaying his solution: placing one house inside another and listening to the conversation between the two.

These pages unfold the brief history of the house, what has been said about it, and what has been left unsaid. Not only does it tell the story of a unique construction, but also of the context that made it possible: the California of that era and the natural, fertile, and productive relationship between the artists of the time and the architect.

Víctor Navarro is an architect and holds a PhD. He is a professor of architectural design at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM). In 2005, he co-founded the studio Langarita Navarro with María Langarita, responsible for some of the most vibrant and innovative projects in contemporary Spanish architecture, with numerous national and international recognitions.