Clara Eslava and Miguel Tejada PHOTO: Manuel Casetlls

"A very large group of architects have not C the real estate invasion of recent years. In fact, we have been the most critical of the uncontrolled growth of cities and the occupation of the coastline. The economic balance has made visible this complaint that has always been present". This was stated by Clara Eslava, who gave a lecture at lecture in the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra together with Miguel Tejada, her husband and partner in 'Eslava y Tejada Arquitectos'.

Miguel Tejada added that"the time has come to reflect on the transformations that have been carried out and what we want the transformations of the future to be. As an example, he said that cities "need internal transformations to improve their public spaces. The interesting thing is for citizens to take ownership of them; we architects must be sensitive to this and improve their conditions to make this possible.

"The attraction of public spaces is their indeterminacy: anything can happen in them. Architects should not control that indefinition with our projects, but rather enhance the value of this support for life," said Clara Eslava. Some supports," she continued, "can be negative because they create barriers or limit the flow of events. On the contrary, as professionals we have to look for beauty -in its most classical sense- with modern tools to improve the quality of life".

Renovation of Serrano Street in Madrid
These two graduates of the University of Navarra's School of Architecture also referred to the issue of mobility."In a consolidated space, giving priority to the pedestrian comes at the cost of eliminating road transport. However, the trend towards electric vehicles, which do not make noise and are less polluting, is going to configure a different way of understanding the street," said Miguel Tejada. Clara Eslava agreed with him: "It may even change our relationship with the presence of traffic.

At a lecture organized by the department de Urbanismo, Clara Eslava and Miguel Tejada discussed several design urban space projects developed in their studio in recent years, such as the remodeling of Serrano Street in Madrid. "In the 1960s it had undergone a very aggressive transformation that had undone its initial configuration. The responsibility of operating in a consolidated fabric implies responding to different requirements , from the strictly functional to meeting the demands of merchants, neighbors and cultural entities...", recalled Eslava.

"The reform of the street was mortgaged by a national infrastructure decision, the Chamartín-Atocha AVE connection," said Tejada, who stressed that "the excellent coordination of the intervention at three levels was very positive for the city: the transformation of the surface, the parking infrastructure and the new rail connection.