The architect Javier Antón Sancho defended his doctoral thesis 'Javier Carvajal. La forja de un lenguaje' (Javier Carvajal. The forging of a language) on January 30 at the classroom Magna of the University of Navarra. School of Architecture of the University of Navarra. Antón stated that his research "is of special significance given the enormous importance that the living memory of Carvajal's teaching has in this School, from which several generations of architects have benefited and indirectly those who have come after us".

The origin of the doctoral thesis arose from a lecture given in Pamplona by Ignacio Vicens, Full Professor of the School of Madrid and disciple of Carvajal. During subsequent conversations with Vicens, the possibility of co-directing a thesis on Carvajal's work began to materialize. Javier Antón acknowledged that at first"the choice of topic was a compromising decision, given the controversial public significance that accompanied this character, which unfairly brought him a lack of recognition for the indisputable quality of his architecture". In this sense, Antón explained that his thesis "addresses the complex trajectory of an architect extraordinarily endowed with multiple qualities: brilliant, controversial and vehement; of exceptional personality and singular thinking".

Javier Carvajal was a professor at School of Architecture of the University of Navarra from 1976 to 1996. In 2012 -one year before his death-, he was awarded the Gold Medal of Spanish Architecture. This award is the maximum award awarded to those people who have especially excelled in the exercise of the profession.

The jury especially valued his status as a master and reference letter within contemporary Spanish architecture, the quality of his built work and his great work in the field professor and academia. For several decades, he devoted himself more intensely to teaching and academic work in Madrid, Las Palmas, Barcelona and especially in Pamplona, where he traveled every week for more than twenty years, showing an enormous spirit of sacrifice. He left a strong mark on a whole generation of Spanish architects who feel indebted to his teachings.

The School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, instituted in 2012 the award Javier Carvajal, which was awarded in its first edition to Kenneth Frampton and two years later to the Swiss architect Mario Botta. Frampton himself directed Javier Antón's Master's thesis at Columbia University minor thesis . It consisted of a proposal of exhibition on the Somosaguas de Carvajal Houses, which thanks to funding from the Spanish Embassy and Columbia University, could be carried out at high school Cervantes in New York. The opening roundtable was attended by Frampton himself, Alberto Campo Baeza and Javier Antón.

The importance of a seal staff

"This work of research aims to highlight the options that Carvajal was consciously taking as nutrients of his own architecture. His time in Italy, the approach to the Nordic countries, his relationship with the American continent, his dabbling with the industrial design , and his deep attachment to the Hispanic tradition, allowed him to draw for himself a mental map in which a multiplicity of registers were happily reconciled". According to the doctor, "this rich exchange was also an opportunity to offer the international public the first samples of his architecture. The successes he reaped in Rome, Milan and New York were the platform that served as a fulcrum where he could confirm his path. Furthermore, as an ultimate goal, this thesis pursues the abstract delineation of the elements that make up the grammar and poetics of what could be considered his own architectural language".

For Carvajal "architects are humanists at the service of man, whom we want to make happy. If we were only technicians or artists, we would be left with a handicap. Our greatest satisfaction is that people tell us they are happy in the houses we build. At the School, we try to work in this spirit of humanism". As Antón recalled, in the case of Carvajal, "this vision materialized in a very staff way of doing architecture".