Books
The Works of Bernabad
The medium is the message. Marshall McLuhan was saying that the mode through which information is transmitted influences how it is received. This may be why many monographs on architects, at a time when publishing and advertising overlap, are an unreadable ocean of plans and images, and the object becomes more important than the oeuvre being showcased. So Bernabad makes an orderly visual discourse under a single lens (all the projects were photographed for the purpose by Bergera) that will help present a career rooted in Aragonese territory, far from the ‘global village.’
Defying the trends that took on a lead role in the Ebro region in the early 2000s, Francisco Lacruz and Alejandro San Felipe, with engineer Daniel Abad, kept out of the spotlights and away from the pleiad of stars with their iconic buildings, focusing on a disciplined architecture that gets better the higher the site. Their work extends from the Moncayo to the valleys of Huesca, but it’s in the Pyrenees where we best appreciate a language that is sensitive to place and concerned with building and dwelling.
Through the book, divided into two parts, Bergera takes us on a walk in the mountains, where buildings respect typological traditions, adapt to local climates, and use materials within reach. On the way back, the environment is urban and dominated by the technical component or by territorial research. Five essays probe the firm’s different sides for a full view of a 25-year-old practice, which started in the mountain peaks to now venture beyond Spain.
