“The cold was like a massive wall that made us realize, right then and there, what time of year it was. And the place, of course. Because we were in Roncesvalles, where we came across Carlos Pereda and Óscar Pérez, who served as our instructors during the second architectural design workshop. The guidelines for the upcoming assignment had been announced a week earlier: a chapel along the Camino de Santiago. This piqued our interest, not only because of the location but also because of the project itself, which would allow us to explore concepts that help convey who we are and what we seek in a space of this nature—a place where one can find oneself. And so, we explored the site, which turned out to be a real surprise: as we walked through a thicket of trees, a vast space opened up before us, with the French Pyrenees as a backdrop. There we had to conceive the project our chapel, with all that it entails.
The results were varied and positive. Together, we navigated the path leading to the project final conclusion—not because it had no further answers to offer, but because of the time factor, which remains an inescapable reality in our lives. In our proposals, we explored themes such as light, mass, void, existential space, and the unique perspective each of us brought to the landscape. The weekly challenge involved critiquing each project , which enriched the discussion allowed us to draw inspiration from our peers’ work.
The end of the Camino, as pilgrims expect, was in Santiago de Compostela. After exploring the city’s historic center, visiting its cathedral and its rooftops, and walking along those cobblestone streets, we presented our projects at the Ría Foundation, directed by David Chipperfield. There, the journey came to an end, and the general critiques covered a variety of topics and routes, informed by a two-and-a-half-month process that had begun some 800 kilometers away.
With Fabrizio Gallanti, it was impossible not to learn: his first slide, drawing on the book *Learning from Las Vegas* by Venturi, Scott Brown, and Izenour as its fundamental concept, featured a phrase titled“Learning from…”. And the guiding principle was, precisely, to learn from history. We embarked on a highly enriching theoretical journey, as the theories on the city by various authors allowed us to understand manifestos that, throughout the 20th century, had their successes and failures.
The daily exercises pulled us out of our routine of constantly producing work for studio critiques and led us to explore the city in a very practical way. Like the Situationists, an international revolutionary movement of artists and intellectuals that formed instructions the 1960s, we were asked to undertake an urban drift—which consisted of aimless wandering without analog or digital maps. We got lost in the city and came across unfamiliar buildings until we reached Barañáin.
From Roncesvalles and our urban wanderings through Pamplona, we moved—though not physically—to Vienna. With Mariano González Presencio, our classes centered on the Austrian capital, taking us on a journey that encompassed not only architectural works but also artistic ones, during a historical period when these expressions were at the forefront. Each of his classes was enriched by a bibliography magazines, such as the Italian Casabella, and books by architectural historians and critics, which made us want to be architects even more than the day before.
“Thus, amid landscapes, cities, projects, and theories, this semester has left an indelible mark on us—one that will not fade with the passage of time. If these past months have taught us anything, it is that our discipline—which we are so passionate about—is built on both ideas and experiences, and that every stop along the way has the potential to transform the way we think, design, and inhabit this complex world.”
