Férriz y Cabrero: lecciones de una desconocida y paradigmática colaboración entre fotógrafo y arquitecto

Abstract

With few exceptions, it is not possible to date collaborations between Asís Cabrero ( 1912-2005) and a photographer other than Jesús García Férriz ( 1900-1988). Similarly, there are only few and isolated works proving that Férriz made photo reports of other architects’ work. This dual situation points out a unique case study, barely known and unexplored up to date, and of a great theoretical relevance to delve into the intricacies of the marriage architecture & photography. This situation becomes even more exceptional due to the existence of paper prints form the architect’s own archive —kept at the General Archive of the University of Navarra— as well as the availability of the photographer’s original negatives. The close and loyal working relationship between Cabrero and Férriz represent, in the context of modern Spanish architecture, a unique case of complete trust and complicity between an architect and his photographer. Although there are other relevant examples —such as Coderch and Català-Roca or Fernández del Amo and Kindel— none of them proved to have such an exclusive relationship. This fact can be proved not only by the available data and the different hypothesis that might be formulated, but also by the case study described in this text, which provides a rigorous and critic analysis of the unpublished material showing how the architect’s project and idea is described and graphically documented through Ferry’s photography. We therefore address, under a new reciprocal practice among the actors in the process, the synergies between architecture and photography that endorse and support a particular status coherent with the role played by the image of architecture in its growth and media, historiographical and disciplinary transmission. As opposed to Asís Cabrero, who has already been recognized as a leading figure of modern Spanish architecture, the photographic work made by the Férriz family has scarcely up to date been revealed in the field of Spanish photographic community of the 20th Century and has never been recognized as example of professionalism and technical expertise in the course of their long term career. In this text the outcomes of this relationship will be explored not only based on technical and aesthetic qualities, but also on the analysis of the rigor and coherence of their respective attitudes and their professional skills.