This week, Gianpiero Venturini has interviewed the architect Enrique Sobejano, in order to learn more about his professional career and his opinion on the profession of the architect. He finished the interview with a council for the future generations of this profession.
PAST questions the conditions that allowed him to embark on a path of success that led his company to be among the most internationally recognized. Enrique explains the reasons for his decision to study architecture, anecdotes and his first assignments.
PAST questions the conditions that allowed him to embark on a path of success that led his company to be among the most internationally recognized. Enrique explains the reasons for his decision to study architecture, anecdotes and his first assignments.
Gianpiero Venturini: Would you be able to define certain milestones and indicate the years of the different phases of these beginning years?
Enrique Sobejano: “ We became the Sub-Directors of the international summer courses in El Escorial . The director was Sáenz de Oiza, and he said to Fuensanta and me, “I’m the director but you do whatever you like”. It’s true, we organised everything and he always gave the master lecture at the beginning of the course. We invited many of those international architects and Spanish architects. We are now used to having all these international connections. This was 30 years ago and in Spain, and we were the first to invite Jean Nouvel to Madrid, the first to invite Rem Koolhaas to Madrid... For us, it became a real way of learning how they expressed their ideas, and how some very admired architects did not know how to express them although they knew how to build them. Or how, on the other hand, some people were really communicative.”
Enrique Sobejano: “ We became the Sub-Directors of the international summer courses in El Escorial . The director was Sáenz de Oiza, and he said to Fuensanta and me, “I’m the director but you do whatever you like”. It’s true, we organised everything and he always gave the master lecture at the beginning of the course. We invited many of those international architects and Spanish architects. We are now used to having all these international connections. This was 30 years ago and in Spain, and we were the first to invite Jean Nouvel to Madrid, the first to invite Rem Koolhaas to Madrid... For us, it became a real way of learning how they expressed their ideas, and how some very admired architects did not know how to express them although they knew how to build them. Or how, on the other hand, some people were really communicative.”
PRESENT shows the unique characteristics of your study, understanding how they work and how they have grown over time. Thanks to this interview, we understand your practice and we can understand the reasons for your success.
GV: How have the themes or your early interests evolved through time? Are you still interested in the same topics?
ES: “ Well, of course, your way of thinking evolves with time. That is very clear. I don’t believe it is a very interesting or logical way of acting by saying that you have the same ideas till the end of your life. Yes, you have ideas, some of them are very rooted while many others are evolving. But this connection of architecture to a place is still a key question in our work. Of course, ‘place’ can be ambiguous, it can refer to topography, but also to culture, to memory, to history, to social questions. ‘Place’ is very broad, but it is a position because there are many other ways of acting on architecture where the place is not the theme. In the process of evolving in our career, I have a feeling that you don’t decide exactly where you go, but you decide where you do not want to go. Now, that’s an important part.”
ES: “ Well, of course, your way of thinking evolves with time. That is very clear. I don’t believe it is a very interesting or logical way of acting by saying that you have the same ideas till the end of your life. Yes, you have ideas, some of them are very rooted while many others are evolving. But this connection of architecture to a place is still a key question in our work. Of course, ‘place’ can be ambiguous, it can refer to topography, but also to culture, to memory, to history, to social questions. ‘Place’ is very broad, but it is a position because there are many other ways of acting on architecture where the place is not the theme. In the process of evolving in our career, I have a feeling that you don’t decide exactly where you go, but you decide where you do not want to go. Now, that’s an important part.”
FUTURE seeks to deliberate on relevant issues of today and tomorrow. Enrique suggests a selection of key concepts that represent his own approach, while trying to anticipate future trends in architecture. The interview ends with a council aimed at the new generations of architecture students.
GV: Would you like to share a couple of key-conceps or themes that are central in your practice?
ES: “ We have to transmit that as designers, the architectural issues and themes are not only our private interests. They are, really, questions that influence, enormously, the way people live. After these thirty years of being an architect and having the chance to build, in many cases, what we wanted to build, I have been thinking more and more about what it is to be an architect. What impresses me most is how simple decisions that you do one day with a pen or folding a paper influences, positively or negatively, the lives of people for many, many years. If we are able to transmit that this is a key question, that it is not the same living in this flat as living in the one next door because there are a couple of questions that make you understand the feeling of an atmosphere, of materiality, of light or whatever. This is the only thing we can learn how to transmit because if not, architects could just be called building agents. So this is a key question to me. That does not mean that I am not interested in topics like sustainability. I am definitely so interested in that, of course, but to me, it is not the theme, sustainability should be a must - like how a house should have a roof to shelter it from when it rains - it has to be sustainable in its concept.”
ES: “ We have to transmit that as designers, the architectural issues and themes are not only our private interests. They are, really, questions that influence, enormously, the way people live. After these thirty years of being an architect and having the chance to build, in many cases, what we wanted to build, I have been thinking more and more about what it is to be an architect. What impresses me most is how simple decisions that you do one day with a pen or folding a paper influences, positively or negatively, the lives of people for many, many years. If we are able to transmit that this is a key question, that it is not the same living in this flat as living in the one next door because there are a couple of questions that make you understand the feeling of an atmosphere, of materiality, of light or whatever. This is the only thing we can learn how to transmit because if not, architects could just be called building agents. So this is a key question to me. That does not mean that I am not interested in topics like sustainability. I am definitely so interested in that, of course, but to me, it is not the theme, sustainability should be a must - like how a house should have a roof to shelter it from when it rains - it has to be sustainable in its concept.”
