On April 13, Palm Sunday, our colleague, partner and great friend Fernando Iraburu Bonafé passed away suddenly and tragically. His departure, at a young age, has left a void in his family, his friends, his colleagues and all those who shared with him his closeness and joy.
Born in the capital of Navarre, the first born of a large family of nine siblings, son of Carlos and Gracia, Fernando embodied from his childhood the values that would later mark his life: generous submission , honesty and a special sensitivity. He studied at the Irabia-Izaga and Miravalles-El Redín schools, where he stood out for his academic performance, his passion for sports, and his sensitivity towards the most vulnerable, collaborating in centers for people with disabilities and homes for the elderly, sowing affection, dignity and joy.
From a very young age he was amazed by the beauty of the everyday. It was this sensitivity that led him naturally to architecture, a vocation he inherited with gratitude and enthusiasm from his father, and which he shared with several of his siblings. At the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, he cultivated a brilliant transcript and a quiet and fertile work ethic. His talent did not take long to emerge: already in the initial courses, his professors recognized in him a distinct, reflective voice, deeply committed to the challenges of a Spanish architecture in the midst of crisis.
During his five years of training, he developed a sustained academic career, characterized by excellence in project work , conceptual depth in the analysis of projects, and A insatiable attitude of constant research and innovation. Within the project department , he stood out for his ability to articulate critical thinking with innovative technical solutions, as well as for his B to the urban, social and environmental context.
During this period of instruction, he found in art and sculpture an inexhaustible source of inspiration, dazzled by the architecture of masters such as Carvajal, García de Paredes, De la Sota, Fernández del Amo, Sainz de Oíza, Bohigas, Peña Ganchegui, Fernández Alba, Vázquez de Castro, Fernando Higueras or current references such as Peter Zumthor, Álvaro Siza and Souto de Moura. His sensitivity to find beauty in the ordinary also extended to music, where the compositions of Wim Mertens, Bill Evans, Brian Eno, Brahms, Mark Knopfler, René Aubry or John Coltrane resonated within him, feeding a poetic and melancholic imagination.
In cinema he found echoes of his deepest concerns, fascinated by the transcendent gaze of Terrence Malick, Tarkovsky and Kurosawa, the genius of Orson Welles, Hitchcock and Fellini, the humor of Keaton and Berlanga, the density of Antonioni and the elegance of George Cukor. He was also accompanied by the readings of thinkers and writers who shaped his vision of the world and the transcendental: Umberto Eco, T.S. Eliot, Joseph Ratzinger, Stefan Zweig, Ortega y Gasset, Aristotle, Cicero, St. Augustine, St. framework , Kenneth Frampton and Paul Valéry. In this crossroads of voices and views, he traced his own path, cultivating an architecture full of content, report and beauty.
Beyond his academic achievements, his time at the school was marked by his collaborative spirit, his joy, his elegance, his constant willingness to help his classmates, and his commitment to an architecture based on ethics, beauty and service.
During his university years he actively collaborated with Vaíllo + Irigaray Architects in multiple projects and competitions. Later, he began his professional internship in the Alcolea-Tárrago studio, still as a student. He participated in several national and international competitions -together with colleagues and brothers such as Carlos Iraburu, Yago Vaíllo, Jorge de Ulibarri, Marta Ayesa, Joan Maravilla, Marc Ribert or Ignacio Cimadevilla-, obtaining mentions and awards that foreshadowed a degree program of excellence. Projects such as the thermal baths in the place de la cebada in Madrid, the Rural Tourism Accommodation in Vietnam, the interpretation center of the Bardenas Reales, a winery in Peñafiel, the monastery of San Juan in Burgos or the historic file of the same city, the sugar factory of Monzón, the bookshop of the UNED in Valencia or the archaeological complex of Cártama.
Despite the brevity of his professional career, his trajectory was distinguished by an uncommon intensity, leaving his mark in both the design and human spheres. From his first collaborations in prestigious programs of study , he demonstrated a technical maturity and an unusual architectural vision, approaching each project with rigor, sensitivity and enthusiasm.
After finishing the degree program with A, he was selected to present his final project among the seven best Degree of the course. From then on, his professional life unfolded in a "double track" as singular as coherent: on the one hand, collaborating in programs of study reference letter as Mangado y Asociados or Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos -after a formative stage in Cano Lasso Arquitectos-; and on the other hand, cultivating a staff and independent work in reform projects and small new buildings in Pamplona, Madrid or Malaga. More recently, together with his father and brother, he founded Iraburu Estudio, with which he achieved important successes in public tenders, such as the Basque Pelota Interpretation Center and the redevelopment of the place de Santa Ana, both in the historic center of Pamplona.
Through his projects and delicate works, although incipient, he showed a fertile promise, a sharp eye for the essentials of living and a deep respect for the report, the place and the human scale.
Along with his professional internship , his passionate eagerness to transmit while keeping alive a critical and reflective attitude about discipline. Fernando had begun his doctoral thesis at the University of Navarra, under the direction of Professor Jorge Tárrago, thus continuing an intellectual life deeply rooted in the love of knowledge, architecture, and art.
Fernando was not only a brilliant architect; he was, above all, a profoundly good person. With a clear gaze, sharp thinking and a hospitable soul, he had an insatiable curiosity, a quiet generosity and an immense capacity to listen, as well as a deep and simple faith.
But in the midst of this mourning, the certainty remains alive that her search for beauty was not in vain. That his submission will fertilize other gazes, other traces, other projects, other lives. And that, somewhere, beyond the visible, the architect already dwells in the eternal house.
Rest in peace.
Text written by: Yago Vaillo, professor at the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra.
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