“Like scenes at a crossroads, between stairs and places, between tensions and demands, between limits and borders.” That is how Barcelona-born Manuel Gausa thought of architecture, and with this conviction he set out to shake up the profession with multiple reagents, from art or philosophy to mathematics or computing. He died unexpectedly on 23 August, a tireless figure who founded the publisher Actar with Ramon Prat, headed Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanisme (1991-2000), collaborated with La Vanguardia (2001 to 2005), taught landscaping in Genoa, and was behind the cutting-edge Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia; a diversity of fields and activities key to an understanding of the transition to the 21st century and the effect of information and communication technologies on the discipline.