Slats Facades
[English & Spanish]

Edited by Josep Minguet
August 2013
Monsa
Distrubuted by Trans-Atlantic Publications Inc.
ISBN: 9788415829232
221 pages, Illustrated
$44.50 Paper original

---

The Venetian blins pays homage to the shade, as a subtl mechanism capable of showcasing the light. Because, all in all, light is all we have left. We architects build spaces for the light to inhabit. Is an element of climate control that provides thermal inertia to the facade. The recent curtain walls, inside which access can be made for mainterance or cleaning operations, are of that same trend, and they reactivate a certain value that architecture, because a poorly understood technology, had discarded in teh 70s. The grids on teh Bank of Bilbao by Oiza, as well as Foster's latest office buildings in Germany, are the modern inflections that Barragan in Mexico, Browner in Ibiza or Sostres in the Catalan Pyrenees utilized as the cornerstone of vernacular architecture. In all of those projects, there are grids that fold up as a secret tribute to Gaudi, and wood planks nailed on a wall, like Aalto did in Muuratsalo. Because there is no such a thing as modern vs classic architecture, except sublt differences, or differences not worth mentioning.

 

 

Return to main page of Trans-Atlantic Publications