 OK, we're going to get started. Good evening, and welcome to the Paul Byard Memorial Lecture. My name is Jorge Otero-Pylos, and I'm Professor and Director of Historic Preservation here at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. The Paul Byard Memorial Lecture celebrates Professor Byard's lifelong work to illuminate the importance of good contemporary architectural design in the preservation of historic buildings. Professor Byard was Director of the Historic Preservation Program here at Columbia from 2000 until his death in 2008. Every year, we invite a distinguished architect who has advanced our collective understanding of this relationship. And this year, we are honored to welcome Antonio Cruz of Cruz Yartiz Architectos from Seville in Spain. I think it's also a moment when we have to make this choice, where we always ask ourselves, what would Paul think of this architect? Would he agree? And I think this year, in particular, he would have been very, very pleased. Professor Byard wrote The Architecture of Editions, Design and Regulation in 1998. This is a book that I think everyone has read in this room. And if not, then you should hurry on and go read it. It was a book that really marked a moment in the thinking about architecture and preservation. And in the book, he advanced the idea of the combined architectural work, this idea that two moments in time can collaborate and make something unique and different than at any one time could have existed. Part of something that would be part historic building and part contemporary architecture. A combined work was very special for Professor Byard, because if done right, he argued, it was a dialogue between architects of different time periods. And it was a dialogue that was rendered architectural. It was a dialogue that if you could understand the language in which it was spoken, you could actually see these architects thinking out loud about fundamental issues. And one of the fundamental issues that concerned Paul Byard the most was how buildings sustained the public interest. And so this notion of the public interest that runs as a sub theme in the book, The Architecture of Editions, really developed into something much larger. And he decided to develop it into a full book, which was to be called or titled, Why Save This Building? The Public Interest in Architectural Meaning. Now he spent a Guggenheim Fellowship in Holland while doing research for this book. And it was really a great moment in his life, I think, when he went off to Holland to do this work. And I remember an email that he wrote to me about the architecture there and how wonderful it was to ride his bicycle to work and to sit there and ride his manuscript during the day. And on his way on his bicycle to see all of this amazing architecture just while on two wheels. And the downside he said with a typical good humor was that so much good architecture was also terribly distracting in that he'd had this terrible accident that had left him with a fractured clavicle and only one hand to type with, which was gonna slow down the typing of the manuscript significantly. And it just struck me that he would have loved Cruciarty's renovation of the Reich's Museum in Amsterdam for its masterful design, but also perhaps because it famously involved a dispute between bicyclists and architects, which is the subject of a five hour documentary which I invite you all to download and to watch. He I think would have been amused by this and he would have loved the idea that the public, however it comes, whether it comes in the form of a cycling group or in the form of a landmarks preservation commission is interested in architecture and helps to articulate a new kind of architecture. I think had Paul had the chance to finish his book before he passed away, he would have surely include the Reich's Museum as an example. Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz are architects that met in school in Madrid when they were studying with Moneo in the late 1960s between returning to Seville to start their practice. Their work has earned them over 30 national and international competitions. They've been widely published in journals and monographs and exhibitions that have been held in Europe and internationally. And so it is amazing to see them sustain this level of architecture over decades, one after the other. And I remember meeting them 27 years ago and I was a student of architecture at Cornell University and they were visiting professors there. And architecture school as you all know is late nights and I remember their office in Sibley Hall always had a little light on and we thought that they'd left it on and went home but we soon found out that no, they were always there, that Antonio was actually there at night burning the midnight oil, sending faxes off to his office in Seville to try to get all these amazing buildings and in particular he was working on the high-speed train station in Seville at the time. And so we would drop into his office and he was there with his drafting board. This was 91, we were in 91. And what was amazing to all the students there is the generosity that they would take the time from their busy work, they were clearly trying to send the fax, but they would sit there and we would have these wonderful hour-long conversations about architecture and about the smallest details and the grandest theoretical speculations. And I think that's the uniqueness of their work that not only have they been able to carry out these amazing projects, but they've done so with great generosity to the discipline and to the students that like myself had had the good fortune to run across their path along the way. More recently, cruciartis architectos has been selected to represent Spain at the Venice Architecture Biennial and in May 2014 they were awarded the distinction of Knight of the Royal Order of the Dutch Lion. They recently received the 2014 Honor Award for the American Institute of Architects and the Spanish International Architecture Award. And the list goes on. Tonight Antonio's gonna be talking about three projects that particularly represent their attitude and their perspective on the way that one intervenes on historic buildings. And without giving too much away, one of those projects is their own building. So that is the challenge of all challenges to have to go back to your own work. And so without further ado, please join me in welcoming Antonio Cruz. Thank you very much Jorge. Thank you for the invitation to be here and to talk about intervention in buildings. And Jorge invited me to explain the project of the REC Museum and I wanted to explain to two other projects to make a little bit more complete in this intervention. And I would like to begin with a small introduction and make, doing a reflection of having a look to this building. This building is clear that it's a mosque for all the Spanish, for more European people. It's very clear that it's the Cordova Mosque. This is quite very well known. It's not difficult to recognize. But I show you this picture. This is not so easy. This is more difficult to recognize because it's a baroque cathedral, but maybe no one of you knows where is the building. The surprising thing is that this building is just in the middle of the mosque. It is here. This is the intervention that the Cretians made once that they took Cordova. Okay, they began doing another. They began here with a small chair, but at the end they make this very big intervention in the middle of the building. And this is the chair of the cathedral over the roof of this mosque. All this is very well explained in this book for Rafael Moneo, La Vida de los Edificios, The Life of the Buildings, in which he relates with a lot of detail all the things that happened in this mosque along the time. And I will lie in the introduction of this book that I ensure that I think this is already translated into English, but I am going to quote only one word in Spanish, and then I will do some translation, like another translation, and Rafael said, cada vez veo con más claridad que los edificios se desplazan en el tiempo, que no tienen la permanencia, la inmovilidad que para ellos a veces deseamos. Sobre los edificios gravitas al tiempo se mueven con él de manera inevitable. No son estrictamente lo que fueron y estamos obligados a acertarlo. In English there will be something like this. Every time I see more clearly that buildings move with the time that they don't do not have the permanence, the immobility that sometimes we want for them. Building gravitas sometimes move with it inevitably and we are forced to accept that they are not estrictly that and they were. I think that this is very clear and I think that this is, let me say this is the, in resume about what I am going to talk today, about how building change along the time and how we need that the building change. And this is the three building that I am going to explain, the Basilea station in Switzerland, the Rijksmuseum in Netherlands and one building, the stadium in Madrid. And we will begin with the Basilea station. This is Basilea, it's a big city, one of the biggest cities in Switzerland and it's a city divided in two parts by the tracks. This is the south and most of the cities in the north and in this situation there is the station. This is the Swiss train station and there is also in this part there is the French train station because Basilea is in the border in between Switzerland, Germany and France. And the station that was finished around the year of, I think it's 907. This is the building in the time when we would finish. You can see how it's a very French building with these two tower with the clock in this position and these two door arch that you can think that after these two door arch it's going to be the main hall for the train. But this is not like this. What you are going to find after the arch really is the hall for the tickets. That what you find in that position. This is something that maybe is surprising but it's a very beautiful room that it is still there and that is going to be one of the main problem to resolve in the remodellation of the building. The problem was that after this hall, this entrance hall with the ticket they have different tunnel. This was the first tunnel that passed under the tracks to arrive to the different platform and then they made another tunnel going to the south because the train station was a large and it was more tracks and they need another tunnel. And that's made that the functioning of the train station was very poor. And this is the purpose to make a competition to make a pass rail over the tracks and that the people could arrive on the upper part of this pass rail and going down to the different tracks. And that's what the point where the new pass rail have to arrive. And you see there were a lot of compromise because we need to, this was a building that was a monument and we had to deal with the fact that we need to make modification. We need to make a new pass rail in the over all the tracks and arriving to this point. For sure you had to change something but the problem was to make in the more accurate way. And this is the first idea in which we began to work because you can understand that deep pass rail have many different problems. It depends on the different situation in which we are. In some point we need to be high enough to go over the existing cantilever and that we could superpose the new roof of the pass rail in such a way that we had to make the small modification in the existing buildings. In another point we need to go down for instance here to make the links with the existing point. But at the same time, there is a lot of different situation that was quite difficult to solve with a simple form. That's why we began working with doing a very simple plan solving the problem of the different escalator and the elevator that had to arrive to the different platform we proposed a quite regular, well organized pass rail that's come from here to there. But the problem was how we can connect with the existing building. And in this here we see how we propose a roof that goes over the different elements. And for instance in this part we had to be higher because we wanted to be at the same level of the existing cantilever and that we could be over without touching this element. But then we had to go down in this point to arrive to make the connection. And all that, at the same time we need to be quite high in the middle to have a feeling of a big building. But in this shop, in this commercial space we need to look for a lower level of the building. And with this we began to play or we began to try to look for a free geometry form that allowed us to make all together or that we could get everything that we need in the different points. Now here this is the existing building and this is the new passerelle with all this shape that you can think that this is a free shape but I don't think it's free. I think it has in all laws that are a little bit more difficult to understand. But this is not a free shape. This is something that is a more complex shape. You see how for instance in this point we can make our building higher than that and we can hang all the facade for this bin without touching, there is a gap in between this all building and the new building and it's a gap and it's a free space. All these elements were in this idea but at the same time we get a very recognizable shape a very recognizable profile that gives the idea of a new building that gives the idea that the building, the station have changed. This in the profile of Basel there is now this profile that explain that the station have suffered a change and that there is a new station even that we have done modify and as minimum the existing building. In the only point that we are going to modify is in the relationship in between this pass rail and this hall of entrance to the building. Because I don't know if, okay, this is the situation of the, this is a model with all the shape of the roof and this is the roof. When we arrive to the south part in this part we make an elevation trying to get a new facade to the south of the city because all the main cities here in the north but in the 16th station they have not any facade to the south and we created this, we make something higher here trying to get the feeling of a facade that make more visible the station in the south part. This is the station, the new pass rail and the profile of the building and the building is a metal building with pillar in steel and a roof of aluminum but the problem that this was difficult to solve was also how make the relation thing in between this new pass rail and the existing hall. Most of the entries that we have in the competition they propose don't make any change in this hall and to make the elevation of the people to the pass rail just in this white platform that we can have here but our purpose was to maintain the importance of the existing hall like the entrance to the new pass rail. We understood that if really we wanted to maintain the importance of this hall it was very important that it was really the point in which you can enter to the new pass rail and you can have the escalator that allow the people to go to this level to the upper level here. And we propose this modification that now you are going to see that you can understand that they have been very difficult to the conversation with the people of the deckman flagging that is the people who had to take care of the monument in Suicella because we wanted to convince them that we need to maintain here a big hall in this point with all these arches in such a way that the pass rail could arrive directly to the hall. They understand the importance of this idea. They understand that was part of the project and in this view you can see how the demolition of all these arches was done. And now the integration of the new escalator. We maintain just till this point the hall at this was at this point but all this part we maintain the two one arch and another arch here but the six small arches was changed for this new intervention. That I think this is the most important of the most difficult part in our project is to get the permission and to get the opportunity to modify this Scharthelen, I can't remember the name in German. That the hall for the ticket it is the new entrance to the new pass rail. This is the day of the opening of the pass rail with all the people getting for that building to the other. I think this is what the main important point in this project. And this is the interior, in the interior we make a roof that was very visible with this boot in the roof that gives you the unity all along the 200 meters of the pass rail. And we leave that all the changes that you need to have in a commercial space appear from this line to the bottom. And here everything could happen but here in the upper part is the space where we wanted to maintain the unity of the building. In here once again this difficult point in which the all elements are here and our new roof and our new facade is here without touching this point. And here so we see the same point looking for the outside. And now I am going to explain a little bit about the construction on how we can construct this building, this pass rail because we had to do at the same time that the whole station was working and the train in this city is very important every day in a city of 500,000 inhabitants I think that every day approximately half of this 200,000 pass by this station. And we make this is the situation and in this point it's going to be built like a factory in which we were able to fabric the slab of concrete. It's a one meter high, three feet high slab of concrete that was fabric here and this was passing over the element that we had to build at the same time allowing that the train were working all along the time of the construction. One that we have done this slab of concrete over this slab we can make this more lighter building holding in a steel and aluminum and we can repeat this profile that we are looking for all the time to get this facade and I have mentioned before this more important facade looking to the south of the station and giving an important facade in this part of the city. And for from Basel we are going to Madrid and to explain in two parts the building that we have done there. That was in the maybe these faxes that Oscar mentioned in 1991 where we were doing the competition for to make this stadium that initially the competition was to organize all this big space for different sport facilities. And that from all this competition that we won at the end the only thing that we built was this stadium for 20,000 spectator and the stadium have only one bleacher only in one part. This is, there is different reason why you can build one stadium with only one bleacher in the west part. And that can be explained maybe because athletics is not the same sport than football and in soccer as you say here because in soccer all the pitch is very homogeneous but in athletics more of the same happening in the final and in the arrival or maybe because it was important for a city like Madrid that we are going to do the track and field stadium to get something that have some importance maybe because this part of the city need an iconic element. We decide to do one this building with only one bleacher. For this small drawing we began to build first the model maintaining the idea that you have seen in the building that is this wall here, different curved wall in over this curved wall this element that is the only one bleacher that have been called in Madrid the Peineta is a special piece of the traditional world of the women that was very recognizable and this is like something is an element that lying over this wall of concrete. But I like also to show this picture of the building when it was still under construction because you can see that the building is not neither the concrete is finished. You can see that here there is still something to do but it's very important that the building is already finished. You can in this concrete structure the idea of the building is complete or that you are going to see later is not important. Though this important is this construction in which all the shape of the building everything is already done. Even I would say that I like less this image in which there is all this small thing it is the railing, there is the light. Okay, I prefer this situation previous in which the building spread themselves only by the concrete. And that was the building that we finished in the year 1995 and that recently or not so recently, 10 years ago we received the commission to make a large amount of the building and we received initially the commission that to allow a building for athletics that then we can transform in soccer stadium and finally the commission worked directly to make a soccer stadium. And in this you see once again this view without railing, without nothing only the concrete poor and all the expression of this building is complete in this image. And this building that also couldn't be understand like a two facade building like a Hano one building that you don't know if the real facade is the interior or is the exterior. And even in the interior this sensation on unique material is very present in all the spaces that we have in this interior. And now we had to make the large amount of this building and we wanted to maintain this iconic building of this iconic impression that was already very important for the city of Madrid but we have to make a transformation and we need to make something that complete the 16 building and that's what the first idea that we did in 2004 I think that we began working in this enlargement of this building and we wanted as I have said try to maintain this exactly this image that have been the more fixed image for people and but we need to any case to make modifications. And this modification is implied that we are going to change all this element we had to build one blister and a second blister over the previous blister we had to complete with the same system of constructions and we propose to make a roof, a roof that is a cable and canvas structure. Today I'm not going to explain the construction of the structural concept of this roof that is quite interesting and I'm going to only to leave you to think about what had been the main problems that we had tried to solve with this enlargement that I have already mentioned that we wanted to maintain the image of the building but at the same time we would like that the new building doesn't appear to be a frankestain made by two different parts for different intervention but that you can understand the whole building like only one architectural idea. I let you see a little bit of soccer because everybody had to have a rest. Spain won of course and okay this is the complexity. This type of a sport facilities are really, really very complicated program with so many different people here you see the new roof but at the same time you see how the initial building once again like also in Basel we don't touch the initial building even that this was our own works but then we had to begin this is, this is the final project in which it's different we make a roof that is a little bit different of the initial and we have to make this is an explanation about the difference elements of how the building had been built with all the excavation and the different program because really it's very complex for the different families of users that one building like this has we had to deal with the general public we had to deal with the VIP, with the VVIP, with the referees and with the athletes, with the press, okay there is plenty of different users that normally had to be in different position and in some point they had to meet one with others and that makes really very, very complex all this program and I had to say because I think that most of you know already how the Spanish architects we work that we are very generalistic we work in all the part of the architecture we take care of the functioning, we take care also about the, even about the construction or the building about how the roof works even that at the end we have also engineers that work for us and that they made the last calculation but the structural concepts is part of our works and here we had a lot of fun I will say because to do this roof is very something that is also very interesting is the roof itself is like an element that is resist itself they only transmit to the concrete part that is all that that you have seen now they only transmit vertical loads they don't transmit moments only in that way we represent that with this element that now arrive like a wheel or like a well and it is really like this you could take this element you have, you are very strong in that and you can make independent of the total building and this is the last element that arrive and make the unity in between all these elements okay and now we are going to go ahead we are going to pass a little bit okay and this is the image of the building and I am going to go a little bit quickly because enough we are not going to have time to speak about the Rijksmuseum but the thing is interesting to see this image about the construction of this roof how so many people working in a building like this so many engineers, so many good professionals that have to collaborate into doing this complex construction with all these pieces that had to be fabric previous leads with really complicated shapes and that everything had to at the end be in the place, in the sad place every all this, all that that you are seeing is the world of a whole day to put this piece of this circular bin in the top of the building and then bit to bit to the moment which we are able to put all this cable in here I go a little bit quickly, the construction but at the end this roof with this exterior cantilever that goes there, there, there but you see in this image, this is interesting for me to see how this is the previous building it is there for the nostalgic and then always say the previous wall was there you made the walls now, okay you have those who like the initial building it is there, so many people around this interesting buildings, interior complexity, picture all that is me sure to at the end at the building only 22 players at the end in the middle of the field and the snow arrived and someday give us a different vision that we have never thought in this and now we are going to Amsterdam and to talk about the Rijksmuseum and the Rijksmuseum is in Amsterdam Amsterdam is a so beautiful city it's one of the more beautiful cities in Europe it's a city that have all these buildings but have mainly this canal that are so impressive and it's so wonderful and in this city that began in the this is a vision of Amsterdam in the south and the year thousand, it was a very small city but this was a very powerful city that began to grow in doing a grown around the old city from the east to the west that finally the complete of the or the extension of the city and that's what the city in the moment that the first building the first Rijksmuseum wall built in this position you can see that the old city the historical city was already complete but nothing had happened around outside this old city and in this moment that was a moment of growing of the city and at the same time was a moment in which the concept to be in Netherland to be in Netherland was a very important moment from the point of view, the nationality there was a museum that had been created in the year 800, 801 but at the end of the 19th century they wanted to make a new museum but at the same time the idea was that the city is going to grow to the south and this was very important in the conception of this building for the very beginning because this is the Rijks and it is now and this is all the hometown but this was the idea of the competition that Peter Kipit did and with that drawing he won the competition and you see that the building at the same time is adored to the station, to the city, to the south you can see that this is like an okay and you can cross through the building this is very important in the conception of this building for the very beginning this way to path through the building is not only a passage, it's really a street of Amsterdam, this is the property of the city of Amsterdam it's not the property of the museum and this is very important in this history in the history of the museum and in the history of our extension and Kipit planted the station of the city to the south with these three rods and even in that time you can see that in the beginning not only pedestrian only horses even trams are passing through the building and that's what the situation of the building when we began to work there but we began to understand the world of Kuiper and to study how was done this building and we discovered this drawing in which there is a dow in the time of Kuiper there is a dow, there is a possibility, a two possibility because for an architect like Kuiper that was trained in the academy in France it was very easy to suppose that he can make a building with two couriers, one courier and another courier with an entrance, this is easy but the stair had to be here in the scheme that they know how to do and the problem was Kuiper that he can't situate the stair in this position because this position there is a street and then he studied two possibilities what I can do, said Kuiper I go to the courier and when the courier I entered in the building and I put the stair in this position or I put the entrance here and I put the stair in that position and I let the courier only like interior of the building finally Kuiper and the people who managed to took this decision, they have a building with two doors I think that we can see if we go a little bit in the rear okay, we have the building with one door in here another door there and with two stairs in that position and another position okay, that was the decision that Kuiper made this was one of the possibility that was the other possibility and then they decide this is the upper level with the same problem and they decide to take that and in Kuiper's time the courier were part of the exhibition you can see all the rest of different pieces of architecture that were in the courier like part of the visit of the building but this building have had always this problem that the street cut the building in two and there is no relationship in between east and west part of the building and at the same time the building was not very well understood in the beginning they find that there was lot of decoration in the building the Kuiper had understand the building like experience like now is said, okay it's not only to see the pieces on Rembrandt or the Femia or the Fanhal he understood that the whole building had to be one experience for the people but you are going to see how during the 20th century this is not understood during the 20th century the curator and the director of the Museo understand that a building for Museo had to be an space in which you can contemplate the pieces are in the more independent way and without any that disturbing your perception and that way they began to eliminate decoration and to eliminate things one and that's what we find it when we arrived everything was painted white no decoration remained there the protestant had won the fight against the Catholic architect that made this building because that's what I know about the problem that the Kuiper was a Catholic for the thought and the protestant said this is too much decorated okay and this is what we found it in that beautiful front hall that and okay this is the place where the the restaurator of the building was in the upper part that I explained that because and this is the aspect that the cafe was in some part but also in the room of honor the most important space where the here it had been always the night was situated you can see how from this image to that began to disappear things more more and we arrived to that situation okay and this is important because really they had been a different way to understand what is a museum today in the beginning in Kuiperstein a museum was a space was a building in which in the same building had to tell us dancing about the art is not only the problem to show the small pieces world of wonderful pieces from firmware or the front hall or Rembrandt or whatever all is the building itself had to be part of the experience during the 20th century nothing of that only the piece and now today we understand again that the building itself had to be part of the experience the people who visit a building now we are more in the line of the people of the 19th century not exactly with the same thinking but we understand that we need also the experience that's what they happen also in doing in the 20th century with the couriers all the couriers were absolutely billed for full of different levels they put the air conditioning over there before to become doing different levels to do in the complete when you enter it in the right museum before our intervention you get immediately lost because there is nothing recognizable the only thing that meant it was maintained was the main stairs and that's all you never understand where the courier were it was you were lost in the whole building and even that the building appeared to be in good shape, maintained for the exterior nothing had happened but in the interior it was really very damaged and the idea of the competition that we made not only we but it was the idea of the client also it was to recuperate this idea the motto of the most of the competition were in English because it was forward with Kuiper they say go to the future but let's go to take Kuiper and we bring Kuiper with us and now we began with our proposal what was proposed for this situation this is the cut in which all the lower level was cut for the passage only the upper level you have some pieces and you also see the different level that we have it was a little this is higher than that and this is higher than that our proposal was to build under the passage to make a connection to connect the two couriers with a new floor going down passing for one part to the other and pay attention to this small sign that we have in this point because they are going to be important in the finishing of the project we proposed to do that and in that idea in the middle to make a cut in the middle of the passage and that the people could go down through this in this passage to create a stair a stair connect the two couriers under the passage that was the idea of the project and that was a little bit more the design already with here an auditorium and here the cafe and the shop because one of the problem of this remodellation of the museum is the new needs that our museum of the 21 of the 20 finish of the 20 and the 21th century we have, we need a very big hall we need a shop, we need a cafe we need auditorium plenty of things that one museum of the 19th century doesn't have and this is the same problem that have been solved in the Louvre by the pyramid of Pei and in the British with the roof of Norma Foster or in the Prado in Madrid by Raphael Moneo and Rijks was the last big museum in Europe that needed this transformation that we did and the other thing that I would like to tell you is that we create a new axis of symmetry West-East, Kuiper had worked only with the North-South and we created a new axis because our purpose was to connect East with West and the purpose of Kuiper was to connect South with North and we understood that we need to create this okay and then this was the image of the competition that we want and that was an idea of the project the first thing that we done is to demolish this wall that we are going to represent and that's such a way because we are going to clean the couriers in such a way that the light coming into the interior of this passage the other idea was this entrance and now I can tell you that never we had not been able we had not been able to make this entrance in this way and at the end let's going to talk about this and that was the first and the first idea to go down in this way and once that you can go down you connect the two couriers and I had already said that this is not the final solution and it's very curious that because I am convinced that we won the competition because of this idea this was the strongest point in our idea was the idea to make this gap in the middle of the passage and to enter to the courier through this gap and at the end for bicycle reasons that I will explain later we have been not be able to do that and in any case we are happy with the building it's only that it's important to tell you the history and that you know how things had happened in this situation and okay this was the initial idea two couriers, two clean couriers that not doesn't exist before now okay they sit in the very beginning and they were lost and this is the point of connection in between the two couriers, this is the passage and now we are right to the second courier in which in the lower part it is the shop and now in this way we are going to go to the cafe in which we think we can see the connection in between the two couriers, the passage and we see this element in the top that we know what we call the cantilever, the chandelier the chandelier that is a special element with many different purpose but to become with you can understand that this ceiling create a virtual ceiling that made that the height of the two couriers and the passage is the same and we get in this way the union in between the three elements by the virtuality of this virtual ceiling that create the, okay that was all the problem that we have with the bicycle and I am in this, okay I am going down to speak about one building that we have done in the time that we were fighting with the cyclists that was the restoration building because I see that it's going to be too large in the conversation and we are going only to see this wonderful image of the restaurateur touching the fan hull and the, and what a building that was near the rikes and the main building in which we made another modification and we get a new building in which I had to say that to get in north lies was the main purpose of this building that's why this incline window and this roof because north light is what the restaurateur wanted to do his work but I go quickly with this building because it's not, it's going to be too, I like to show this picture because it's a picture of all the people working there that are really very happy and they took the photograph and they sent to us like a gift to us saying we are happy which we're building and all of them they are there. Okay, we go back and okay, for different reason at the end we try to make even another proposal like to let the cyclists in the, in the, in a part to reduce but the, the, the curious of the situation is that at the end, at the end the cyclist what they want is to be in the middle. What they want is, is, is, is a, it's a problem of a signal or a signification in the middle is the, the king is in the middle and the pope is in the middle and they want to be in the middle because that who is in the middle is the one who had the power. It's not a problem to have a space because you can see that there, they had a lot of space and even I say something if they have said this situation they are, they could stay in the right forever but in the situation that we have done in some day and some year they are going to be out. If they have said this situation a situation that is expressed for the bicycle they will be maintained forever but now I think that more than three or four years they are going to be out because you cannot have bicycle passing in this, in this museum with the, with problem of security and all the levels and this is what we have to accept and but okay any case there is, there is a problem in us and there is a satisfaction in us even that this beautiful situation on the Entrahand we couldn't done but we were able to, to complete, to complete this building and two main all of the same. The project that we have done is more or less what you are now going to see now in this video and going from the, from the south part and really there is three or four things that are more that they would like to explain about the small intervention that we have done in this part of the, in the north part of the building like this element for the entrance or another element for the, for the Ashan collection that we had done also in the north part of the building like a special intervention, always all this intervention with the same stone that we had used in the pavement and all the arcades that we have in the courtyard we took a special stone to significant the point in which we have, we had a work is the color is similar to the color of this basement of the building but the quality of the stone is quite different but we have made these two interventions that's one that we had already passed. It is a space for the entrance of the logistic and now at the end of the passage we are going to see another small building that we had done for the Ashan collection. The rights have only Dutch art but at the same time have also a good Ashan collection of art and they are happy because now because instead to be mixture with all the rest of the building we made for them a very special building in a small lake and we could show this building difference that stay in this point and is the building for the Ashan collection. And okay, what we could explain more that in the place where they had built in the middle of the courtyard we demolished. This is the demolition that we have done. This demolition and with all these elements and this at the end we are right to this situation where this building that is full of the cathedrals? The scarves, no? And somebody said to us why don't you leave this car visible? But we think that this is not the way that we like to work and we restore absolutely this space. This is the complication to do this building because it said that this is really in Ashan when you dig all the 50 centimeter you have or you have water and you say, in Ashan say you want to make an underground you need a sailor more than a costauder and this is really in that complicated to build the collection. And this is one friend of us, Jose Manuel Ballester that is an artist, is a photograph painter artist that had made really wonderful. He followed normally our work always. We have Jose Manuel already doing work picture for us, he makes his own picture and he take all this beautiful image and possibly we are going to make a special book about the Reich Museum. Also in the Peineta, in the stadium he had made one of the other photographs that I have shown is from Jose Manuel. And he always is thinking and finding interest in points where you doesn't see anything. He's in one opportunity being in these empty spaces of the art, where the art was staying. What happened now when you take out the painture and you retire everything and this is the place. Okay, this is already one normal photograph. People arriving and looking at these couriers that only people that have more than 18 years, they say, okay, I remember for this courier that they see it before and people was discovering what they have and more they doesn't know that the Reich had these beautiful couriers in his interior, all these elements that here is the position of this cantilever is in this position where the building had no windows because windows are only in the lower part because upper part hadn't sent it alive. The light came from the top and that's why they have no, it's where they put the painture in the fair floor of the sculpture. That's why our construction, our this chandelier tried to situate it just in this space where the building had no windows and the building said it's poor. And this is all the element that we build with the same stone organizing everything and this is the building already finishing. This is a building that we have been able to finish very well without we can finish all the detail we are very happy about this and this is the building empty but at the end and the light coming from the top passing through this element, how this element I previously spent to Jorge how this element had a lot of purpose for instance he is good for the sound of the space because it's an acoustic element at the same time we had artificial light in this element here and here this is good but at the same time this is the virtual ceiling but at the same time it's an element that you can feel how the light is coming from the top to the lower part of the courtyard this is the different purpose of this element. And then when that the building is finished at the end the only thing that we could have all this element in the auditorium we control and then the penchant we began to recuperate all the beautiful penchant this is how it is now. Okay, just could be maybe a little bit I wasn't able with 30 years to do that I can't recognize but now we are able to accept that we have to recuperate it's curious because for instance the company who made this floor is the same that made the initial floor at the end of the 19th century he had maintained and he were song of song of song that the people of do have been doing that all these have been recuperated of these elements and this is the gallery of honor waiting the arrival of the night wars and with this of the spiritual and here once again Jose Manuel Vagestere take this photograph that are very I think it's very sensible to see in the interior of these boxes are pieces of art of very a great value you know and you feel that this element that all this are within the position it began to and then every element come, come now and there is only the nice what that arrive in the last moment with lot of ceremonies in a box in which Philips and Chrome and all the body is there because they give the payment they sponsorize the museum and this gap in which the right is going to arrive to the place everything is ready and now Bethric the king the queen can finally finish his kingdom and let his son William William 10 days later of the opening of the museum he was waiting that we finish the work to be retarded and now only the people are right to the museum and only to finish is a leader feeling about what is a museum today with is the mixture of different art how the people, the different culture enter and to finish we see a mixture of USA music with in a Dutch museum in a small film that say how a museum received today the people for all the manifestations for the young, that is, Leonhard Bernstein Westlake history is dancing in the gymnasium lecture it was so enjoyable to hear your thoughts on these three amazing you know one had to imagine a better a better set of examples to deal with the subject of contemporary architecture and historic buildings one would be hard pressed to find them and I wanted to just launch our conversation here thinking a little bit about this question something aside and aside that you made when you showed us the end of the Rijksmuseum restoration and if I understood correctly what you said you said when we looked at the restored interiors with all the polychromy of Kipers you said 30 years ago I wouldn't have really accepted this but now I can so tell us a little bit about that what happened in those 30 years? Everybody had to be conscious that all the people that were a generation came for education in which I know the name in Spanish but not in English it was a book that said ornamento y delito ornament and crime ornament crime okay, that was our when we were young that was our thinking the ornament was a crime after that we were quite young when we began to understand that ornament appeared in the point where there are a problem of construction that was our first approach okay, approach or discovery or approach to the ornament to discover that you take a cup or a glass and you find that the ornament are in the point where the bar is finding the base or in the bar where the bar is finding the cup and you say okay, the ornament is here because there is a problem of construction because people want to hidden this problem and okay, that was the beginning to put the ornament let's say in a rational situation I think that in this moment the ornament is no more a crime and for some people it's even the way in which they are working with a lot of ornaments and if I can even I cannot say better this all ornaments that the new ornament when I see buildings in which the ornament is hidden even the incapacity of the architect I am not so happy but I am more sensible to these periods and I can understand better the architect of the 19th century and the importance of the ornament in this moment and when you see, if you go and you put the question to the visitor what do you say that they are going to say about the, to bring back the ornament they are happy for sure they are happy, okay It's interesting that you brought the question of crime to the discussion because you know there was, I had this feeling you know that especially in the Basel project that there was a kind of a confession of a small crime committed when you demolish those entrances no, no, no, no so no, no, no, no the question is that to talk about the, how clever the people of the monument have been there to understand that we need to make this demolition what was the argument that you made? what case did you make? if you really want to put in function the Charter Halle that is the name, Charter Halle you cannot leave the Charter Halle like a reliquia reliquia? a relic a relic of the past really if you want that this Charter Halle is again functional and the people it had to be the point in which you connect with the new passarell and because you need to connect with the new passarell you need to demolish this element we have been working in many existing building fortunately always in building that are not really a monument let's say in big words not premium buildings because I've seen that we always prefer to build this building in which you can have some freedom and you can demolish some part because when you are really in a historical building of the higher level it's impossible to do that they did it in the past in the core of a mosque they did it and they demolished but you're very critical about it no, no, no, I am not critical I like the building in the way that it is now I am not critical many people always complain about this intervention and they think that it would be better to have this building in the initial shape but I think that the strongest of this of this building and that the comprehension of the needs of the different culture and the different economical situation along the history need to put this building in news in the core of a mosque it had not been transferred in the Christian cathedral it had been demolished that's a very good point and in fact many of the many of the mosques in Spain were demolished there's one of the few remaining ones is that one and so you could are you saying that that was an act of preservation then to yes to introduce that yes because Issa yes, it's an act of preservation because it had been possible to to conserve the core of a mosque because it was useful for the city otherwise maybe today is different but in some cities you go to the city where I live where I live in Sevilla we cannot we cannot have so many museums and so many space for culture and so many space for exhibition we need to use the old convent to transform in other things because it's not it's going to be demolished and the only way is to to be a little bit flexible with the transformation of these buildings I think this example that you brought of the core of a mosque is really important because of course when one tries to and you brought us back you know to the moment of the of the of the inquisition right and the moment where it was not okay to be a Muslim in Spain right and it was not okay to have mosques so I understand how by turning it into a church they were actually trying to preserve it so that makes sense as an argument and so when we fast forward to today many of the projects that you showed us were projects where there was growth the Basel station was small had to get very large in order to get many more people in the Peineta had to quadruple its size the stadium in order to get more people in the Rijksmuseum the same thing it's gone from one to two and a half million visitors since you did your work so if we think of what's tolerable today is it is it tolerable to have a small building that very few people visit that's very important there's a there's every historic does the idea today that we don't tolerate is a very important monument the monument of the capital M that is not visitable by the mass public no I didn't I don't understand the final of your every project you said that all this building can be transformed because we need more people use and then they're all increased what is the question the process I'm trying to get to the country you know by drawing the comparison it's a little bit of a strong comparison over here I'm trying to push the point slightly you know that there was some things that were not tolerable at certain times and that by making a certain kind of architecture they were made tolerable so the church in the mosque made the mosque tolerable and therefore it was preserved and so I'm drawing drawing that the comparison to your work in these museums but I understand but I didn't understand the final the final idea these are these are will be there there has to be two million people that visit this yes and so in a way that could destroy the building couldn't I mean the the first thing that you the first thing on the table is we need a new building we need a new train station we need a new rax museum and so in a way would do you think of your work as a way to save these buildings from or or or you never felt the buildings were in any danger it's not my work, it's the decision of the society it's not because I am an architect but even in the train museum sometimes we had discussion that were interesting for instance when we tried to isolated the building how we can isolate this old building and we had to make transformation to isolate the building and the people isolate or insulate insulate, like from thermal for thermal, for thermal and for water right, so insulate for water and then the people from the monument they say this is not possible we are right to one point in which we say okay rax museum needs a building with one degree of different temperature and one degree of if you don't accept that we have to go outside of the city we make a new building perfect new modern building with this capacity and what do you have with this building it's going to be abandoned and that was the reason they are set that we can modify the situation and that we can make insulation that allow the rights like the collection of the rights to be maintained in there but I take your question in another direction there will be possible to make another kind of intervention with minimum interventions and that we could maintain even for few people for one week use okay that will be very interesting it will be very if economically we can support why not why not I think even maybe maybe the problem will be also that everybody accepts ascertain this functionality in the new building okay that we kind of said that the museum had not only one degree of variability that you have to accept a different situation that are not so so important I think I also could have said that the new function had to deal with the reality of the building and that you cannot optimize it all your conditions when you say I said you I mean the creator I mean the user the user also the building had to accept that if you want to maintain the historical building we had to accept to accept this functionality in the interior of the building and that we cannot impose to this building the rule that we had for the new buildings so what it so so to be clear what ended up happening you allowed more flexibility in the temperature or you insulated and no I think both seen but I think that both seen you insulated and you insulated but not be so restricted I see in different point in different moment I mean sometimes also the user of the building they want to see the building as you were doing one new building and you cannot get in the all building restored all building the same perfect condition of functionality that you can make in a new in a new building that had to be saved I have also in the year problem with the syndicates in a transformation of a building into a new offices and they say that we are not ready to accept any modification of our condition of temperature because you are working or we are in a all building that the the society have decided to maintain and they say no we have our rule and we are not willing to accept any a reduction of the condition and that was the syndicates that doesn't want to accept but the society wanted to maintain this building and everybody had to accept a certain degree of dysfunctionality interesting I'll I love this idea of having to accept a certain degree of dysfunctionality because it reminds me of my family so it's I think it's it's really great but we can come back to that in the Q&A I'll ask you one last question and then I'll open it up to to all of you to to ask some question you mentioned that various junctions in your talk this notion of allowing the image of the building not altering you mentioned not altering it allowing it to remain bringing it back and then putting introducing a new image and so I wanted to ask you a little bit about that because oftentimes we think of the image of a building as the facade the outside of the building no that's the thing that you know typically there there's lots of photographs of let's say but in your projects that tends to not to be the image of the building certainly the image that is circulated so there there is a bit of a turn to the interior even in the Basel project which has quite an extraordinary facade that you've made many of the images circulated many of the way in which visually the building is communicated is through interior photographs the and certainly in the case of the Rijksmuseum and I think increasingly so with the beinette that which is now it's the pitch right it's the interior that's and end that in that roof that third facade so I wanted to ask you about about ceilings I guess it's my way of asking you about ceilings because it seems that ceilings are very important as a way to to change the way that we engage with the historic building okay thank you for the critics for the critics we see our role like an architect like a a whole in which everything is important and I try to also to explain to you how important for us is also the construction and the structure of the the resistance of the building we work in every part of the all the problems that an architect had to face and I hope that this is clear in our building that's why you talk about exterior interior and now you talk about ceilings okay it is clear when you are in an interior you have let's say four walls and one city and the city but at the same time most of the time it is beautiful when the ceiling is also the point where light is coming and to me there is an element that we have not talked today that for me is very very important in our architecture that are the couriers we had many many couriers to me the courier is the maybe the element in the architecture that I like more that's why maybe in Rijksmuseu this courier we had been able to transform with some elements the characteristics of this courier but we have been doing courier for 50 years we were working in the courier so many times and in the courier there is no ceiling but the ceiling is very theoretical because in the courier the ceiling is the emptiness but at the same time it is very present that I can say much more thing about ceilings that those ceilings in the a spore space are also very important because they have this characteristic of the oculos that we are near to the Parthenon in these kinds of classic buildings in which you find the stereo through a central hall I can say well it's no but I think this is very interesting that you brought your work I mean it's true we didn't talk about couriers and many of your early projects were famous for their courier and I'm thinking particularly the one that was like a kidney shaped that you did in Seville which was extraordinary and it was a function of the geometries that you were trying to negotiate so it was wonderful to hear you describe those as a kind of poetics of the ceiling you know that I never really you know it's amazing but anyway I'll maybe leave it at that and let the audience ask questions if you have some Thank you for a wonderful lecture something really compelled me when you were talking about the Rite Museum and you were describing the original entrances to the museum you were talking about the architect as if you knew him you said something like yes he wanted the entrance to be from this way and also from this way you were talking about him as if you were in conversation with him although I mean this is a very old building so I was wondering the question is how much of the process of design is reading the intention of the original architect and how long does this conversation keep going for you? If I had understood your question you are asking me till which point the architect works with freedom and till which point I had to say that for me this is a very important characteristic in the architecture in our work that we had to work with many many many intermediates and with many intermediations I mean we are never free to do whatever we want we can do something and we had to be able to maintain an initial idea, a main idea even that you suffer a lot of change in your project but you had to be conscious that an architect an architect knows like a painter that only have the canvas in front of his and the pensioner and began to do that he made whatever he wanted right there also they are very very very free I think I don't want this freedom because you have to be terrible sometimes it's better to have something that say to you okay you had to work in that way but especially in architecture we had to accept that one world of architecture was the final result of many different situations and people and economic reasons, social reasons and the one who doesn't want to say that maybe it's better to go to another matter because in here you had to accept all these situations and even with your own building it wasn't yours anymore in a way what do you mean? the stadium? the stadium, the building that you designed yes, but when you are working in your own building but then you had a client and the client is a football team that want people to be near the player and there is plenty of things and there is not all the money that you want to have and there is a constructed company that want to be as cheap as possible and there is the city that want to give you the permission or not okay, I can say that it's really very complex to do a world of architecture I think that this is very similar to the cinema if you think in the cinema it's something that have a lot of similarity with our work because there is a lot of people working you need money to do the thing you need people collaborating with you there is photographs, there is plenty of people arriving there okay, and this is quite similar to cinema and architecture I don't like to use the word art sometimes the other activity maybe are more free than us but with cinema there is a lot of things that are similar in cinema and architecture another question thank you so much what is the basic material and the acoustic panels that you are showing there and how well did that actually work in terms of getting rid of the echo which is a big problem with a huge space like that you mean in the rags? right okay the material is said in Spanish top acoustic I don't know how to say in English I mean it's a material made of wood at the same time have a lot of holes and that's the material with which is made any one of these vertical bars but at the same time the fact that they are bar does help from the acoustic point of view because every difficulty that you put to the sound made that the sound cannot go back the sound entering between all these bars and then when they try to go again to you it can't go back at the same time the same material is absorbent absorbs the sound so is there much echo or is it really quiet inside? it's too dry to make the sound more dry more dry that means that less echo less echo to absorb the sound question in the back hi thank you for presentation I really enjoy I have two parts of the question if possible I wonder the economic impact that drives your projects in general and how currently because of the digital and all the technology that architectures has turned I wonder if you if you can talk about that and how how the process of making these changes of existing buildings how is the preservation of this process in relation to now the digital tools could you clarify the question a little bit are you saying that are you talking about social media and how the buildings are represented and are you talking about the economic impact that that has on visitation or tickets I mean could you be a little more clear? in the making of these buildings the process of construction and the labor and how if you compare that to the digital advances how I'm wondering about that balance between you mean digital building like the digital in the building technology like how the digital makes digital tools for design I see so did you use a lot of digital technology in order to make these projects yes for sure and now in this moment we are already working with the bin system we pass from the cat to the bin and we use all the technology that we need but I suppose that this is something that already is understood but this is one or the other problem when I mentioned before the complexity of our architecture even in the interior of our office now when I'm beginning I began working in 71 not in 74 in 71 I began to have a with 23 years I have already my own office and ok it was nothing ok paper, pencil, that's all and now every day we have a lot of computer we have people working we need to work with a lot of people this is something that have changed a lot that make us able to to work very quickly at the same time it's a complexity the necessity to work with the different people and I don't know what to say to you only in the last days or the last months I am thinking about all this idea about the new program the bin program that I am not I would say we cannot forget about the representation that we have done for centuries about the architecture this idea that we can with plan and with section and with facade with the facade represent elements that really have three dimension and the new program today doesn't accept the representation and they won't produce one file that is exactly the building in the three dimension and I said the other way to represent the building the theatrical system is a very clever discovery I said that is very clever and because it's very clever it's difficult to forget about it and to go directly in the three dimensional file that everybody today accept that they have to go there it's only a thinking well I want to thank you for a fantastic lecture and you gave us so much to think about and I think Paul would have been very pleased with the level of discourse that you presented tonight so thank you very much for joining us Thank you