The architect and photographer Iñaki Bergera (Vitoria, 1972) has for over a decade been documenting the ruins of the Panticosa spa facilities, in the heart of the Pyrenees of Huesca. Initiated in 2011, his Standstill Architecture photographic series sensitively captures the scars of neglect at the High Performance Center (CAR), a work of the Portuguese master Álvaro Siza. The construction of the building was paralyzed when it was about to finish, owing to the breakdown of the ambitious transformation project led by the real-estate developer Nozar.

The CAR, which Siza designed with a double skin of concrete and flat roofs landscaped to blend discreetly with the environs, was thought up to be largely underground. But when the property bubble burst in 2008, the project was left uncompleted. Now Bergera is putting together a photobook that will present images he has taken, alongside a conversation with the Portuguese architect.

Through his camera Bergera portrays the ravages of time as superposed layers on an architecture that maintains its dignity in the face of deterioration: collapsed ceilings, decomposed materials, shafts of light seeping in through gaps and skylights. His gaze, combining architectural precision and aesthetic sensibility, captures the poetics of abandonment. The landscape of the Tena Valley –carved out over centuries by the action of glaciers – features ruinous structures, creating a dialogue between construction and nature. In this way Siza’s CAR, divorced from its intended purpose, becomes a silent testimony of the failure and beauty of the unfinished.