This professor at Princeton University has become the most renowned Spanish architect. His clear exposition helps to understand a complex world

The architect and professor at Princeton Baatriz Colomina / ANA NANCE

Books Beatriz Colomina (Madrid, 1952) investigate the preconceptions, analyze the relationship between architecture and advertising, sexuality, illness or X-rays Titles like Domesticity at war or Privacy and publicity: modern architecture as mass media have been translated into over 20 languages ??before they can finally read in Castilian. With 60 years has a physical and youthful joy. Also open mind as a teenager awake. Or as a foreign newcomer, and takes longer living in New York than in Spain.Colomina is an alert person: has not disconnected the radar that detects strange, what you most want.

It is a pioneer in seeking work outside. What has been gained and lost doing? always wins out. There have been two turning points in my life when I decided to study in Barcelona instead of Valencia, where he lived, and when I went to New York. These changes made ??me see life differently. I can not understand myself without thinking of these two transformations.

Have you been looking for work? No. I felt claustrophobic.

 Can you blended professional learning with staff? On Barcelona horizontes.Entendí I opened my life. Also what was happening politically in the country. They were the last years of Franco. I had a conservative environment filtered by a life.

His father was an architect. Yeah He was director of the School of Architecture of Valencia. Everyone there knew who he was. And who I was. The anonymity of Barcelona was liberating.

There you could find? Own identity? There I started looking.

In Spain little out of the comfort zone to grow

In New York landed at the Institute for the Humanities, who directed Richard Sennett. It was an extraordinary place with people like Carl Schorske or historian Susan Sontag. It opened my eyes to listen. Illness as Metaphor , Sontag, showed me how they could do research and how the writing itself is part of the analysis. That did not exist in schools of architecture, where the writing sounds nice, but does not quite understand what it says. The Anglo-Saxons are the opposite: they speak clearly.

32 years living in New York does. bit of Spain in the comfort zone to grow comes out, but in the United States is unusual. When I arrived, so did other architects as Enric Miralles and Carme Pinos Ignasi de Solà-Morales. The three returned a year. Almost all do.

Why did he stay? once I get it: New York was me [laughs]. Really. In 32 years everything has been encouraging, with which, and knowing that many people are reluctant to leave, I think it's very good to do. What Americans have always done: moving from state to state, and the Nordic and Latin Americans, now the Spaniards so must. They will benefit and Spain.

Advertising related to architecture two decades ago. Is the current architecture is the result of that relationship? When I started writing was anathema to say that an architect like Le Corbusier had something to do with advertising. Today it is an accepted fact. I have always been attracted to the ability to remove veils, to reveal secrets. I am interested in breaking down the preconceptions.

Any architect is more bark than bite? lot of them. Always has been.But it has little interest to mention those who have few ideas. Eventually, what matters is what's left. The legendary historian Sigfried Gideon came to Paris looking for Rob Mallet-Stevens because he wanted to write his history of modern architecture. Only by chance told him about Le Corbusier Mallet-Stevens because they came more in the press, but who today remembers Stevens? Le Corbusier took the space on the media making it a place of production of the new architecture. The two most famous architects of the twentieth century, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, take long to get something that was at the level of what they had published as projects. Le Corbusier was the first architect who really understood the media and, in doing so, took the twentieth century architecture.

What are the secrets of modern architecture? Among the most interesting is the role that women have played: Charlotte Perriand Le Corbusier, Lilly Reich and Mies van der Rohe Margaret McDonald with Charles R. Mackintosh, who throughout his vidano tired of saying that it was normal and he was a genius she was. But as much as they say, no way. The world was not ready to believe it. Some believe that Ray Eames was the brother of Charles Eames, instead of his partner and wife.Denise Scott-Brown still suffers such discrimination, despite their obvious brillantez.La first woman to be admitted to the same level as her husband was Alison Smithson. And it is no coincidence that the name of it out in front in the signature. Today many couples do.

Why Pritzker Prize last corresponded only to Wang Shu and not shared his studio partner cofounder Lu Wenyu ? He says it is important, but he is the creator and she is responsible for keeping the office.

But she teaches at the School of Architecture and founded the studio together. Kazuyo Sejima was more generous. Insisted on sharing the award with his partner Ryue Nishizawa , but it also happened with Jacques Herzog had to ask him also give his partner Pierre de Meuron. The architecture is a collaborative practice.It makes no sense to encourage recognition to individuals. I therefore, beyond reclaim the role of women, trying to claim the collective authorship.

Does the hard world of construction departs women?Carmen The great Brazilian engineer Portinho still drinking rum with 90. He told me he learned to do it with little more than 20 years in site visits so that the workers will heed. And they did. But the real problem is above.

For a woman may be easier to investigate the architecture that make? It is equally difficult. Nor is there much in the world of theory and history of architecture. It may be more difficult to make their way in college in the profession.

Modern architecture can not be understood without tuberculosis

And why you chose it? I did not choose. He chose me [laughs]. I found that. Most of my life has been. I've been finding with things and I have also been finding myself. I have been coming to the sites and enjoying every occupation. The pleasure is essential in life. You have to make sure you love what you do because that grows you and makes you grow. The reverse is a pain, I guess. I have always been happy with everything I did: Happy teaching, researching happy and above all, happy writing.

When did you discover you wanted to write? That's what brought me to New York: the pleasure of writing. In Barcelona I was very competent: teaching, writing, even did a little book. But acting without the pleasure of getting lost in the words. I learned that in New York.

How shook off the guilt of enjoying working? [laughs]. I think that Catholics enjoy a lot. My mother is a socialite. With nearly 90 years is never home. My father was more ascetic. Also more eccentric, introverted eccentric mind. That also has a lot to do with what I soy.Mi family was conservative. But my father had the idea that women should go to college. I thought there would be many future architects. If I knew how hard we have it yet ...

Did your mother work? No. We are four girls and a boy, the fourth, maybe that's why my father insisted on the study. But he was alone.Everything else we contradicted. At Christmas we went to my aunts house and we said, "What strange things happen to your father, do not listen or not I never will marry."

Housing for all 'is not an empty slogan. It is a moral obligation

Ever reproached his father had dedicated to theory rather than to build? always thought it was a passing thing. So do I.

His brothers have also found themselves elsewhere? Small is doctor and studied and worked in London, but after a few years back. The rest did not move. The largest is a philologist and runs a library in Valencia. The third is also a philologist.He had seven children, then separated and now, finally, have a business. My daughter said that before, when we got to Valencia, were the most rare, because she is the daughter of an architect-Italian, but is convinced that they are now rare. I've never wanted to marry, but I have 25 years with the same person. Now the whole family more interestingly complicated. The fantasy of family end Catholicism has exploded.

Your daughter lives with you? There has already 27 years old. It has long been independent. In the U.S., as they go to college they leave home. Is planner and is doing a PhD. I am very proud of her.

The two most significant architecture biennales, the Venetian and the Ibero-American, nearly opposite reward architectures: art experiments and works with few resources. That mixed message gets lost? Latin America I am anxious. It's amazing how we have ignored. The Venice has to re-think what it intends to do.

Does the history of architecture is fair? Could there be some hidden genius? sure there are. But what interests me most about the history of architecture are other ways to write the same story. Be fairer when more inclusive, and be more inclusive when it recognizes that architecture is a collaborative work in which many people participate. The story is not only unfair to people with specific projects, it is with entire continents. This is rethink how history is organized. The architecture should be clear who should be. Until recently, neither spoke of engineers, and many have been involved in the final architecture. A more inclusive history of architecture would bring many more kinds of players.

Why is the written message of architecture so complicated? By insecurity. The worst writing are the most complicated things. But writing is also complicated when the reflection is complicated. Do not fear complexity. The architecture is complex. But writing should not be more difficult than trying to describe.

Have you hit your analytical skills to their way of relating to others? I think not. Susan Sontag said her work was better than herself.There are many reasons: she worked hard on their drafts, and as a person was the first draft. I am also the first draft.

What it takes to research a topic? If you look at things a long time, you see the strange in what you think you know. You have to allow time for the strangeness arises. Writing is a kind of doing psychoanalysis.You're leaving something of yours in the eyes with which you work and what you will be finding. The interdisciplinary look is what interests me because it is wider. I started doing a history of modern architecture from the point of view of the disease, inspired by the work of Sontag.

What does the disease with architecture? Modern architecture can not be understood without tuberculosis. We've studied from all points of view: the industrial, aesthetic ... And we have forgotten the obvious: real life. What modern architects offered was almost like a recipe health equal to that proposed medical manuals to treat tuberculosis: the outdoor terraces, the sun, the whiteness, hygiene ... Tuberculosis You dominated the first half of the century XX. It is normal that not only be in the literature but also in the architecture. No talk of healthcare architecture. It is modern architecture which internalizes this immense trauma that was tuberculosis and tries to help. Becomes healing.

Why do you think that politicians care so little architecture?depends on politicians. Consider the case of Medellin.

 Esperanza Aguirre let slip that architects should be killed ...Before the figure of the architect was respected here than in other countries. But today, to measure the importance of political architecture, and its valuation, you have to look to Latin America.

Detects changes? There? On Latin America's power and intensity. I feel the obligation to study it carefully, analyzing the history of modern architecture there. In the forties, the MOMA exhibition organized as Brazil builds and Latinoamerican architecture. But he did as part of the policy.All the attention was due to the intention of the U.S. government to ensure that Latin America was an ally. It was a good neighbor policy that later, when the political interests went the other way, was completed and began to worry about what was happening in the Soviet Union. Was how Latin ceased to exist culturally for MOMA. He disappeared. And not only the MOMA, also architectural magazines. All of Domus a Casabella, had special issues on Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico ... And suddenly this interest was cut. And I say one thing Colombian architect Giancarlo Mazzanti I am very interested. Than the poor must be given the best in Medellin's good that concluded the building remains in the slum.

Yet it would be better if it was a good building. Admittedly l to Library Spain is best resolved by outside than inside, but it is very striking. I like. I like the reaction that generated pride in the neighborhood. There are girls who arrive at nine in the morning when they open and stay until nightfall, when they close. To be in a library with computers and books instead of having to be on the street changes the life of a generation.

Does the challenge of the current economic architecture? From that we can learn from Latin America, working with the shortage. And learn. Must find new ways of operating. Part of the modern legacy is that: adequate shelter for all. This should not be an empty slogan. It is a moral obligation.

But that legacy was left in bourgeois homes for a few. intention was broader. We must return to that idea and investigate more about it.Schools should devote attention to study an architecture that could be done with limited means. Architects could greatly help society.

Vote in the U.S.?? No. I refuse to leave the Spanish passport. But if you vote, you can already imagine my choice.

Why Obama builds trust? have aura.

That's it? has not done much politics, that supposedly, is what to give credibility to a political ... It was disappointing to rule over the center of what was expected, but Obama won because there is no choice. It has been a very careful person. He's too polite. He has tried to negotiate with Republicans, but these people can not negotiate. If here want to kill the architects, there want to kill all immigrants, poor women ... That's what's scary really. 

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