PATXI MANGADO POR SÍ MISMO, EXTRACTO 06/09 DEL PLIEGO SCALAE: an obsession for materials, for the material nature of things…

(a propósito de) materiales > [ver +]

[English]
Patxi Mangado: I am  very much attracted by materials, by the material nature of an object and its construction, by technical rather than technological aspects. Our designs do not offer grand displays from a materials point of view. However, there is a process of elaboration of that reality in all of them. We never include a single detail directly from the market: things that have been mass-produced do not interest me much. For example, I might resolve the problem of a door handle by using some folded metal sheets that I have lying around, which I might also use to sort out some carpentry problems I have.  I’m interested in the raw material, in exploiting it to the extremes, which might be determined by me or by the project. I like to look for expressive values, different ways of making and  manipulating materials, different from what is on offer in the market, which is usually perfect, but too simplistic and anodyne. Just think about an iron foundry.. about those fantastic balls of iron that are used to moor boats. Don’t you think that they could be a means of provoking architecture? Don’t they suggest something that might serve as a project?

Or extruded aluminium. I’m not interested in the profile products in the catalogues. What really interests me are aluminium sheets. Because they can be manipulated and worked on, I can make a special cut out of them or whatever… That’s what I mean by investigation and research. It’s fascinating to manipulate a material, even one not normally used for that purpose, finding a use for it that nobody had previously thought of. Obviously any new discovery for a material gets spread around and somebody else might use it first. But I have always loved to share this kind of thing with my friends.

One can also embark on more abstract concepts when thinking of materials –  more  ideological concepts if you will; more useful ones. We’re working on the idea of mineralisation at the moment. I got really interested in the subject when I was helping my daughter Laura with her natural science studies, seeing how minerals form. There could not be a more architectonic formation: reglamented, organised, geometric. Pure architectonic game rules! It is very suggestive if we look at it a long way away from that ideal concept from which  expressionist architects usually work.

Some of the floors, which are appearing for the Avila Auditorium for example, are related to that idea of minerals as something organic yet geometrical, not accidental. But here, our project is what is controlling the game rules. We are also using mineralisation in its capacity of formal expression connected to some aspects of glass –  not in its transparent form, of course, but opaque. Glass understood as something like the most solid, not the most fragile, of stones. 

All of these questions refer to the physical side in a concrete or conceptual way. These  are the kind of influences that interest me, but because they are very architectural, don’t you think? Architecture inspires me more than sociology, economics or the market.

[Español]
Patxi Mangado: Siento gran atracción por los materiales, por la materialidad del objeto y por su construcción, por los aspectos técnicos más que tecnológicos. Nuestros diseños no ofrecen grandes alardes desde el punto de vista material, sin embargo, en todos hay un proceso de elaboración de esta realidad. Nunca hay ni un solo detalle incorporado directamente desde el mercado: lo producido en serie no me interesa mucho. Resuelvo unos tiradores con una chapa plegada que encuentro en el suelo y que, por ejemplo, también me sirve para resolver algunas carpinterías. Me interesa el material en bruto, explotarlo hasta el extremo que fijo yo o fija el proyecto. Buscar valores expresivos, maneras -de hacer y de manipular los materiales- distintas de la oferta del mercado, generalmente perfecto, aunque anodino y simplificador. Piensa, por ejemplo, en una fundición de hierro… esas bolas tan fantásticas, que se utilizan para amarrar los barcos. ¿No te parece, en sí mismo, un recurso para provocar arquitectura? ¿No te sugiere algo que puede servir para un proyecto?