"When he returned to Pamplona after graduating in Madrid in 1957, the Navarrese architect Fernando Redón undertook a struggle against the patterns that, repeated for centuries, made up the urban fabric of the city," says Luis M. Fernández Salido. His thesis , defended at the University of Navarra, analyzes the figure of this architect, author of works such as the Casa Huarte or the Edificio de las Hiedras in Pamplona.

"During the degree program I collaborated in Fernando Redón's studio. Since then, my interest in his work has not stopped growing," he says. Thus, Luis M. Fernández decided to investigate the figure of this architect from Navarre, born in Pamplona in 1929. "Redón began his work when faith in scientific progress and the idealism of the avant-garde movements was being displaced in favor of critical currents such as organicism and neo-realism. At the same time, in Spain, the eagerness to recover lost time generated a complex and plural status , in which orthodoxy and revision were mixed", emphasizes the author of the thesis . "These tensions -he adds- led him to trace his path from the humanist side of the discipline, through rootedness and expression".

A new architecture in Pamplona and Navarra

During the first half of the 1960s, Redón formed, together with the Pamplona architect Javier Guibert, "one of the most interesting teams in northern Spain," he says. From this partnership emerged some of the most emblematic pieces of the city, such as the Huarte Towers or the Erroz Tower, and its surroundings, such as the Klinker Club in Olazagutía or the Ulzama Golf Club. From 1966 on, the doctor adds, "he continued to search, again alone, for a rooted and comfortable interpretation of modern architecture". He then conceived buildings such as the Ubarmin Clinic (Elcano), the Control Building of the Portland Cement Factory (Olazagutía) and a large issue of single-family homes and commercial premises.

For Luis M. Fernández, "his work marked the beginning of the profound transformations that both Pamplona and Navarra experienced in the second half of the 20th century, in terms of architectural culture". In this research he argues that "his buildings are an example of how the new architecture can be reunited with domestic values and belonging to a place. In them, comfort, warmth and intimacy are integrated into the modern ideal of outdoor living, in contact with nature".

Fernando Redón represented Navarre at the 1992 Seville Universal exhibition through two of its emblems: its popular houses and its forests. "With this proposal, the architect closes the circle that, since his beginnings, he has described around the archetypal form of inhabiting", concludes the author of this thesis , which obtained the grade of A cum laude.