(1900-1998)

“I am nothing close to a good example of an architect. Apart from the humble quality of my work, I am on the contrary, a good example of what an architect shouldn’t do if he wishes to be one ...” These are the words of Joaquín Vaquero Palacios in his acceptance speech for the Gold Medal from the Spanish Council of Architecture Institutes, which he was awarded in 1996, and which belatedly recognized the side of his work partly eclipsed by his output as an artist. It was this that the painter, sculptor and architect who died on 28 October referred to when talking about the difficulty in reaching the Renaissance ideal of the integration of the arts, and the meeting of disciplines which characterized his own career. Rationalist in buildings like the housing for the NIP in Oviedo (1934-42), and historicist and vernacular in the fresh food market in Santiago (1938-1942), the powerful, plastic talent of Vaquero Palacios achieved its most genuine expression in the engineering projects built for the Cantabrian Hydro-electric Board, among those the Salime dam (1954) and the Proaza power station (1964-1965).