Abitare Research Reviews Polyphonic portrait of Ábalos & Herreros
Polyphonic portrait of Ábalos & Herreros
Fabrizio Gallanti
A new seven-voice monograph explores the fundamental contribution of the Spanish architecture studio Ábalos & Herreros, which closed in 2008 but continues to influence the development of young architects
Published by the Swiss publishing house Park Books in collaboration with the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) of Montreal, AP164: Ábalos & Herreros takes an original approach to a book type that tends to have a well established mould: the monograph on architecture. Before we go any further, we must inform you that the Ábalos & Herreros studio no longer exists: in 2008, after about two decades of intense collaboration, Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros chose to continue their separate professional ways, which means that there is a corpus of plans, buildings, writings, and university lectures that we may consider completed. Responding to an invitation from the editor Giovanna Borasi, and masterfully orchestrated by Albert Ferré, associate director of publications for CCA, five architects and a photographer set to work sifting through the studio's archival materials, organized three small exhibitions in rapid succession, and contributed to the book.
Each researcher – a rather loose term, here including active architects who are also university professors but not historians or critics of architecture per se – selected works that would highlight their own particular interpretive approach. It is a simple yet discerning choice that demonstrates a crucial point: there is no one single history of architecture, but rather a multitude of interpretations that overlap and interweave. The Belgians Kersteen Geers and David Van Severen, who crossed paths with Ábalos & Herreros when they were students in Madrid with the Erasmus programme, focused on the fascination with industrial architecture that permeates many of their projects, combining drawings, deliberately chosen for their technical leanness, slides of buildings and structures taken as references during the design process, and Lewis Baltz's photographs of ordinary buildings, industrial sheds, and warehouses.
AP 164: Ábalos & Herreros
Juan José Castellón González, who worked at the studio between 2003 and 2007, explores the theme of lightness in their works, particularly in towers and skyscrapers, in an interpretation where construction techniques and materials were never openly displayed but rather selected and assembled in such a way as to suggest the dematerialization and gracefulness of the buildings.
Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, who were colleagues of the Spanish architects at Harvard GSD and Columbia GSAPP, use a broad selection of photomontages to grasp their approach to the landscape, always suspended between the traditional idealism of the rural world and the intrusions of modernity.
The book presents a whirlwind alternation of images, analytical texts, fragments of conversations, drawings, and photographs, including a series by Stefano Graziani dedicated to the archive, to aid the reader in following the various trains of thought.
Stefano Graziani, photographer. View of a collage for the industrialized housing prototypes: AH-Gia Houses by Ábalos & Herreros, 1993–1996 (AP164.S1.1993.D11). Digital print, 20 x 24.9 cm. From the series Proofs of Relevance, 2014. PH2015:0002:001. Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. Gift of the artist. © Stefano Graziani. Collage © Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros
The voices often meet up in the book, including the reactions of Ábalos & Herreros to comments about their work: what emerges is a polyphonic portrait, where the reader notes that the most interesting creative minds are those who continually produce new "tools", i.e. ideas and concepts, at times sketchy, that can then be used and developed by others. So it is not surprising that Cedric Price, another constant reference point for many contemporary architects because of his inexhaustible outpouring of visions about the future, greatly admired the work of Ábalos & Herreros. No project is presented in its entirety – the various issues of 2G or El Croquis published over the years are perfect for that – , instead the reader appreciates their ability to transmit an attitude and a way of conceiving and doing architecture. And much can picked up simply from reviewing the playlist of music that used to be blasted at full volume in the studio, a good example of an approach that is at once rigorous and laid-back. @FabrizioGallant
edited by Giovanna Borasi with contributions from Kersten Geers and David Van Severen, Juan José Castellón González, Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu, with photographic interpretation by Stefano Graziani.
Park Books, 2016
208 pages, 38 euros
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