Alberto Peñín. Tradition and Technology: the Library of Vila-real

The construction of the library in Vila-real (OAB-Peñín-GyF) underscores how important cooperation with industry was in developing and installing the exterior membrane. In this case, we will discuss, together with BUTECH and its technical team, the process of constructing the building's defining ceramic curtain, built using 7.5-metre-high glazed white ceramic cylinders with a diameter of 5 cm. The system forms an interstitial space that is imperative to the proper functioning and environmental integration of the building, while also linking it to the local industrial fabric, which it aspires to represent, and the Mediterranean culture of chain screens and curtains.

Alberto Peñín Llobell holds a degree in Architecture from ETSA Valencia and a European doctorate from the UPC. He is a tenured lecturer at ETSAB, which he has been associated with since 1999 and where he is currently assistant director of industry relations. He has filed utility models on behalf of the UPC. He is the director of the Architecture, Industry and Engineering (ARIEN) Research Group at the UPC, co-director of the Cátedra Blanca in Barcelona and the magazine and publisher Palimpsesto and a speaker at both domestic and international schools of architecture, such as Madrid, Valencia, Venice and Cooper Union. He has published articles and projects in specialised magazines and exhibitions, including JAE, and has authored books such as Words with Architects (Ed.Pal.) and Last But One (Ed. Actar).

Member of Peñín Arquitectos (1995) and a regular contributor to the OAB since 1999, his built work has been recognised at both Spanish and Latin American biennials and earned him several professional awards. He works as an architect in both Spain (Valencia and Barcelona) and abroad, with special emphasis on accomplishments in France and joint projects in Turkey and Dubai, in the areas of housing, the tertiary sector, facilities and public space. He has won awards in over 30 competitions, finishing first in more than half.

Carlos Ferrater: A House that Floats on Grass

It is not just one house, but many houses, which is why it is such a unique, legendary and disquieting house.

It is a world of visions: a pavilion floating over the green grass, a photographic camera that captures the surroundings in a thousand different ways; it is a secret universe dreamed up by two collectors. It is a house and quite the opposite, telluric and anchored at its base, light and buoyant like a balloon, ready to take flight. The house is an archetype, genuine, just as Gaston Bachelard and Luis Barragán understood it: with a basement and attic. With all its intensity and redolence, it is rich in symbolism. A house set on cheerful land, all garden, which floats above the grass.

These were the words Josep Maria Montaner used to describe Casa AA, origami enveloped in thin, large-format ceramic plates. During one visit, Emilio Tuñón and Luis Moreno Mansilla described it as pure geometry, designed and built in three dimensions.

Carlos Ferrater, doctor of Architecture and Professor of Architectural Project Design at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Director of the Cátedra Blanca, Barcelona. Awarded the 2009 National Architecture Award by the Spanish Ministry of Housing for career achievements and, since 2011, member of the Royal Institute of British Architects RIBA. Member Elect of the Royal Catalan Academy of Fine Arts of Saint George. Named Doctor honoris causa by the University of Trieste. In 2006, he set up, alongside Xavier Martí, Lucía Ferrater and Borja Ferrater, the Office of Architecture in Barcelona (OAB), with Núria Ayala as project director. He has won five FAD Prizes, the 1999 and 2008 City of Barcelona Prize and the 2005 Brunel International Architecture and Engineering Award, and has been selected three times as a finalist for the Mies van der Rohe Award.

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