Lineage and Legacy. A certain Modernism in Cadaqués
Biographies
Stephen Bates
Born in 1964, Stephen Bates
graduated from the Royal College of
Art in 1989 and gained professional experience in London and Barcelona before establishing Sergison Bates architects in 1996 together with Jonathan Sergison. Over the last two decades the practice has won a number of prestigious commissions and awards – among them the Erich Schelling Prize and Heinrich Tessenow Gold Medal – and established new studios in Zurich and Brussels.
Stephen has taught at the Architectural Association and been Visiting Professor at ETH Zurich, EPF Lausanne, ETSAB Barcelona, the Oslo School of Architecture, University of Antwerp and GSD Harvard. Since 2009 he has been Professor of Urbanism and Housing at TU München. He has also served on many international architectural competition juries, including the Iberian Premis FAD, the Stirling Prize in the UK, the Belgian Prize for Architecture and as President of the jury for the 2017 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award.
Through his work in practice and his teaching he has explored the role of architecture at all scales, from city-making to domesticity, designing buildings that are rooted in place, engaged with the historical dimension of existing urban fabric and responsive to the challenges of environmental, economic and social sustainability.
Biographies
Fernando Villavecchia
Born in Barcelona in 1951, he studied architecture at Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB), where he also worked as assistant editor of the influential architecture magazine ‘Arquitecturas Bis’ in the 70s and 80s. He graduated in 1987 and, together with his wife Eileen Liebman, established Liebman Villavecchia Arquitectos. The practice has focused in particular on the reuse of historic houses, both in urban and rural settings, which have been consistently selected for the FAD Awards and have earned the practice a number of architectural prizes. In 2016 an exhibition of their work was held at COAC in Barcelona. Between 1991 and 2011 Fernando taught a number of design studios at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura del Vallés (ETSAV) and was guest professor at the University of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia in 1998.
Ever since he first visited Cadaqués in 1955, his personal and professional involvement in this small town has been a constant and meaningful feature of his life.
This book investigates a particular kind of architecture that thrived in the 1950s in Cadaqués, a small Spanish fishing village on the Costa Brava. It explores a number of holiday houses built between the mid-1950s and 1960s by a group of architects who shared bonds of friendship and architectural affinities, as well as connections with the international Modern movement (including José Antonio Coderch, Lluís Clotet, Federico Correa, Alfonso Milá, Oscar Tusquets, Manuel Valls). Observations on the common threads that link eight case studies are enriched by a photographic essay by David Grandorge and by detailed architectural drawings on a number of significant projects of the time. An interview with the authors Stephen Bates (Sergison Bates architects, London) and Fernando Villavecchia (Liebman Villavecchia Arquitectos, Barcelona) provides a background to their shared fascination with Cadaqués. A timeline contextualises the projects against the backdrop of historical events and the milestone in the lives of the clients and architects who made the village a unique locus in the history of architecture.
ISBN 978-3-03761-237-8
Stephen Bates, Fernando Villavecchia – 2021
Spanish/ English
Hardcover, thread-stitched, 26 cm x 20 cm / 10.24″ x 7.87″
175 pp
385 images, 118 sketches and plans
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