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Emilio Ambasz is getting his due. The Argentinian architect is the subject of Green Over Gray, a film by Francesca Molteni and Mattia Colombo debuting at Toronto’s ICFF film festival that dives into four enchanting projects that demonstrate Ambasz’s vision as a curator of poetic scenarios, a pioneer in green building, and a profound humanist. It focuses on the Casa de Retiro Espiritual in Spain, designed in 1975 and completed in 2000; the Lucille Hall Conservatory in Texas, which opened in 1982; the Fukuoka Prefectural International Hall, completed in 1994; and the Ospedale Dell’Angelo Mestre in Venice, from 2008. The film lavishes praise on Ambasz via the participation of multiple points of view, from the architects who admire him (among them Tadao Ando and James Wines) to those who work in the places he created, including a doctor at the Venice hospital and a horticulturalist at the Texas plant conservatory. Yet Ambasz, for the most part, remains in the shadows – enigmatic as ever – contributing his thoughts via voice over.

In this recent interview, Vladimir Belogolovsky, who curated an exhibition on Ambasz’s oeuvre in 2018, reconnected with the architect about one project in particular: the indelible Casa de Retiro Espiritual. The private home meets land-art monument is shown throughout this conversation via the romantic, mainly sepia-toned photography of Michele Alassio.

Vladimir Belogolovsky: When you talk about your work, you use such words and phrases as “eternity, invention, fables, rituals, ceremonies and processions, a stage set, magical garments and gestures, celebration of human majesty, primitive and ancient, timeless appearance, giving poetic form to the pragmatic, and the search of spiritual home.” How else would you describe your work, and what kind of architecture do you try to achieve?

Emilio Ambasz

I am always very suspicious of defining myself in words. The words you mentioned only describe some aspects of my architecture. What I believe very strongly is that architecture is an art, and like many of the arts, it engages in inventing a certain universe that doesn’t exist until it appears. How it appears, I don’t know, and I don’t force it. I am not an intellectual. I am not a person who reasons. I am a person of images. I make images. Sometimes, images come to me; sometimes, they don’t. I simply need to be disciplined to let these images come and try to understand what they mean, if anything. Of course, interpreting them requires having certain professional skills to see what aspects of these images are valid. I strongly believe that every act of the creation belongs to myth-making, a sort of inventing an explanation. That’s where the magic resides.

I am often asked about my sketches. I don’t see much value in those. When the image comes, I simply draw what I remember, like a diagram. I don’t design by sketching. I design everything in my head. First comes the image; then, I elaborate on it. I typically do it while waiting for the elevator or the subway. Once the image is finalized mentally, I draw it up. And I always work in sections, not plans. I perceive architecture phenomenologically, horizontally, not from above, because I don’t pretend to be an angel. As you can see, I don’t have wings. [Laughs.] When I design a section, I think of a plan as well, but it is the section that concerns me the most. Once I finish my initial sketch, I pass it on to collaborators in my office, and we start working from there.

The monumental walls of Emilio Ambasz's Casa de Retiro Espiritual are its defining feature

You designed your Casa de Retiro Espiritual in 1975. It instantly found fame through numerous publications a quarter of a century before it was finally built. How did its image come to you?

I do have a witness to that. My witness and I were in bed.

Sorry, I promised not to ask you personal questions.

That’s all right. Anyway, when the image suddenly came, I described it to her. I could come up with a whole theory about this project, but the truth is that it came to me as a complete image. I think it is a great tragedy when the word arrives before the image. In my case, the only thing I had to do was not to forget the image. [Laughs.] When she left, I drew it up. Then I worked on refining it by putting in the kitchen and bathrooms, and so on. The key is always to have a strong enough image that can move the heart.

A photographer, Michele Alassio documented the house poetically and in great detail. I spoke to him last year in Venice; he compared the casa to a lighthouse.

I can only tell you what my secretary said to me when she saw Michele’s photographs for the first time. She exclaimed, “It looks just like the model!” She was correct. If you look at the model and the house, and for 25 years — from 1975, when I first drew it, to 2000, when the house was completed I had nothing but the model, the two were exactly the same. The house is in impeccable condition; every seven years we repaint the entire façade because of the birds. Of course, if I had a cornice, cleaning would be much easier. But I am a true modernist, so I do buildings without cornices. [Laughs.] And the house still looks the same as when it was built 24 years ago or when it came to me for the first time, almost 50 years ago, when I was in bed. [Laughs.]

You have said that you always believed that architecture is a myth-making act and that your work starts with inventing fables. Was there a fable that originated the Casa de Retiro Espiritual or did you write one later?

I use fables to explain ideas but not specific projects. It is much stronger to present ideas using fables. As I told you before, I detest writing theories; I prefer writing fables.

They stand the test of time.

More than that: A fable that gets inside a fertile head has the potential to bloom. Projects are different. Once I make the image, that’s it. In any case, when I think about the house, I have difficulties to even begin to describe it. I prefer it when someone else describes it. [Laughs.] You can also use a fable to design a project. I have done so, but not in this case. I even used that idea with my students. You give them a fable and ask, What kind of a building can this story generate? It is a good exercise.

Below a berm, the inside of Casa de Retiro Espiritual by Emilio Ambasz

When the image of the house came to you, was it because you were thinking about designing a house at the time?

Not at all. It just came for no reason. Sorry. [Laughs.]

Was it the first house you ever designed?

The very first project I designed was also a house. I was just 15. It was a house for a couple. They were school teachers and had a plot of land across the street from the house I lived in with my parents in Buenos Aires. Regrettably, my design was never built. At the time, I had never heard of Le Corbusier or Cubism, or anything about modern architecture, but it came out to be a cubist house. No original drawings survived. I gave them to the couple because I am not sentimental about drawings. Years later, I reconstructed that house in a model and drawings. It had no windows onto the street, only to the internal patio with plants and a water feature.

You have said, “We must conceive an architecture that symbolizes a pact of reconciliation between nature and human construction; I understand architecture as the search for a spiritual home.” Why did you originally imagine your Casa de Retiro in Cordoba, Spain?

I designed it independent of any location. But I had to locate it somewhere. Since it had Moorish influences, I thought it would be in Cordoba. Years later, in the late ’90s, I found an ideal site for it outside of Seville. It is on high ground in a cool, windy spot, with a beautiful lake view. It is an extraordinarily magical site, absolutely unique. It is where the first silver mines in all of Europe originated. Silver was the reason Julius Caesar came to Spain. The site was owned by Rio Tinto, a British-Australian corporation, one of the world’s largest metals and mining companies. They abandoned this site sometime between the wars. No one knows if there is still silver there. I don’t care if there is any.

The landscape and topography of Emilio Ambasz's Casa de Retiro Espiritual

The site is enormous. How did you discover it?

A broker showed it to me. I didn’t need such a big area, but the specific location I was interested in, a small peninsula on a lake, was only for sale as a part of a much larger site, which happens to be 500 hectares.

What about the orientation of the house? Where does the balcony point?

Due north, the sun always hits the inner sides of the two walls, which is how the house receives light. Even the reflected light would have been too bright, so I had to create an inglenook where you could comfortably sit inside in the shade. It is my favourite place in the house.

Describing the house, you once said, “I wanted to ‘eliminate’ architecture.” What did you mean by that?

Well, that was my usual way of making jokes. No, I wanted to create architecture! I wanted to create architecture by bringing it back to the very beginning. You know, this could have been Adam’s first house, provided he would have managed to find a friendly banker. [Laughs.]

Now you are telling me a fable to describe the house better, right? [Laughs.]

No, the house describes itself perfectly well. Everyone who has ever been to this house told me they could never imagine how much presence it has and how much impact it makes. It conveys a feeling that this is the place where architecture had been invented.

Casa de Retiro Espiritual by Emilio Ambasz, with a horse in front

What a beautiful way of putting it.

That’s the way I see it. Other people may see only two walls and that I didn’t have the money to build the other two. [Laughs.]

And the walls don’t support the roof either.

There you go.

The two walls that mark the entrance to the house signify a gesture of a welcoming open-handed offering. Am I right?

That’s not something I thought of when the image came. They came as two walls. Their meaning is secondary and open to anyone’s interpretation. I did not intend it. These two walls are there. That’s how they came. That’s all.

Staircases lead to an inglenook at the Casa de Retiro Espiritual by Emilio Ambasz

There is symbolism that’s attached to them, nevertheless.

That’s how people may choose to see these walls, but it is not attached to them. To me, these two walls simply denote the house. Frankly, the house would work without them. But I felt that you need something that anchors it. What I need to be very clear about, is that the house is not underground. I never build below ground. It is too expensive, risky for the workers, and requires too much insulation, among other things. I always build above ground and then come with the machine and berm it by placing earth on the roof and around the walls. So, the house is not buried – despite that everyone thinks it is. The house is bermed. It is covered by the earth like a blanket.

Another important reason for the two walls is to carry people to the balcony.

Sure, the site is so marvelous that it made perfect sense to have an opportunity to look at it from a higher point. But it is more like a gesture because, in reality, you don’t see much more if you climb 10 more metres. You can see the same view from below.

I was there, and the difference between how I felt on the ground and 10 metres in the air is essential. I would add that it was quite frightening, even though I am normally not afraid of heights. Also, you see the house under your feet.

You are right. And did you know that one stair is designed to climb up and the other is for coming down? I hope they turned on the water that cascades down inside the wall grooves. The sound slowly dissipates as you ascend to the top, but it is very loud at the bottom. There are stainless steel handrails inside those grooves.

The water was running, alright, and I had to hold on to those wet handrails really hard. [Laughs.] Just by looking at the marble pavement below, you suddenly realize how fragile your life is.

So far, everyone has come down safely.

I understand that the front door, the balcony, and the beams along the veranda were all reclaimed from demolished houses in the area.

They came from Jaén in Andalusia and were all from different houses. I got them from a place that sells remnants from demolitions. They must be at least 200 years old.

A slice in the berm provides views down to the Casa de Retiro Espiritual by Emilio Ambasz

What did you mean when you said, “I desire that the buildings speak with a loud voice but with a closed mouth.”

Exactly that. I keep my mouth closed and let the building speak. [Laughs.] It is true, the house must speak, not I. It is very austere, but it has a very strong presence.

When I look at the house, I sense some echoes of Alhambra as far as historical references are concerned, and then there are parallels to some of the projects by Le Corbusier, Louis Barragan, and John Hejduk. Are these conscious references?

No. I told you that I don’t work in that way. I don’t reason. I study a problem at hand, and I let it sit. Then, somehow, it solves itself. Sometimes it doesn’t. Images come, and the key is knowing how to sort good images from those that are not. I work intuitively. You can’t systematize an intuition. You can’t create a school based on intuition. That’s why I always refuse to participate in design juries. It is not my way.

Inside Emilio Ambasz's casa

It sounds like the design process is somewhat out of your control. Don’t you work on the images that come? They don’t come fully detailed, right?

Of course I do. But first, I wait for them to come. It is like a garment. Once you put it on a model, you have to make a lot of adjustments.

There is not much furniture in the house. Why is that?

What do you mean? There are sofas, tables, and chairs. You see, everything I designed there is transparent. Well, you’ve been there.

That’s what I mean: the furniture is made of glass. Isn’t it odd?

That’s all intentional, and I designed the furniture specifically for this house. All the glass pieces were pre-cut and then glued onsite to avoid very risky transportation.

When I was in the house, it did not look like anyone had ever lived there. Wasn’t the intention to make it your home?

Felipe [Palomino, who worked at Ambasz’s New York office in the mid-90s and later returned to his hometown, Seville] and his family use the house. They spend some time there on weekends because they ride their horses on the property.

Have you lived in the house?

Never. I inhabit it mentally. I don’t have to be in the house to be in the house.

Why then did you need to build it?

So other people could see what kind of house I imagined. And so that people would stop saying I was a paper architect.

By then you had built so many other buildings. You didn’t have to prove anything.

I wanted to do it so that the house would have a life under the sun and not only in my head. I am the keeper of the image. The image must be given the embodiment.

Have you ever climbed those steps to the balcony?

Of course I did!

What did you think?

I was frightened! [Laughs.]

“The Place Where Architecture Was Invented.” Emilio Ambasz on His Casa de Retiro Espiritual

With a new documentary out on his pioneering architecture-landscape works, we speak with Emilio Ambasz about the one project that most captures our imaginations.

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