Spanish ‘Plastic’ Architecture. A critical reading and design approach.

Antonio Camporeale

doi:10.4995/ciab8.2018.7594

Abstract

The following critical text proposes a series of notes and reflections on the reinforced concrete architecture, not on the material itself. Since its invention, concrete has combined two potentialities, deriving from the two materials of which it is composed: the ‘elastic’ potential, which has been developed and has reached a consolidated form and tradition, and the ‘plastic’ one. The last one has been little experienced at the beginning and, in the course of recent history of architecture, has found space in architectural criticism in the meaning of "expressive", "brutalist", "sculptural", ending up to influence 'superficially' (related to the surface) of architecture. The 'plastic' architecture, instead, is three-dimensional and unifies the construction and spatial qualification in a single design gesture. This critical approach not only allows reconsidering the history of modern/contemporary architecture starting from the necessary collaboration between space and construction that unifies the final judgment on the works, but allows influencing the project, adhering to a formative process of those geographic-cultural areas that possess those certain characters, the masonry one. The Spanish "plastic" architecture is, in that sense, a clear example: in many buildings this "masonry" character is clearly identified, due to the architectural exploitation of the reinforced concrete plastic potential.

Highlights

The following notes represent a critical analysis of the Spanish concrete architecture
The interest of this research lies in the development of the possibility to rewrite the history of architecture through a new critical filter
Many are the possible conclusions of this rapid collection of examples, critically read through an organic approach to the study of architecture, that we could try to fix. That they are all defined by a ‘plastic’ character: these notes reached a temporary and partial unity, ready to be ‘attacked’ by further critical reflections that will test their resistant structure and, in the best case, will offer a new critical synthesis, up-to-date and operative, but again ready for subsequent tests and so on

Summary

Introduction

The following notes represent a critical analysis of the Spanish concrete architecture. In the impressive Caja Granada building (Fig. 2) continuous reinforced concrete assumes, in various reading scales, a determinated role and a coherent, constructive, distributive, expressive form: the four hollow pillars, freeing the central space that becomes the important and nodal place of the building, support the great coverage defined by a large plate whose thickness is lightened by a grid of very high and resistant beams, which allow light penetrating into the central courtyard reflecting on the concrete surface itself. Many other works have been excluded from this rapid discussion for reasons of opportunity[10] and space, and many other architects, less known and important, could be re-considered through this critical ‘reading and design’ method, looking for and measuring the influence of the continuous reinforced concrete structure in the constructive, distributive, expressive definition of space through gradations of ‘plasticity’ that necessarily involves more aspects in the convergence towards the architectural unity

Conclusion as a starting point

Bibliographic references