Caricaturas - Alejandro de la Sota

Without the exquisite work and the discrete teaching of Alejandro de la Sota, undoubtedly one of the fundamental pillars of architecture in Spain in the second half of the twentieth century, the definitive entry of Spanish architecture into modernity would have been different, probably less essential and refined. Not so well known is the hobby that the master cultivated all his life with genuine delight and diligence: drawing caricatures of those round him.

The accurate analysis of a figure to achieve the distillation of its characteristic features and the ensuing sketch, resolute and agile, of the most revealing lines of the physiognomy are in fact very close to the approach that is behind his architectonic work. The significant reduction of a face to its elemental calligraphy and the delicate purification of his buildings to get to the core substance emerge from the common root of drawing understood as a useful tool for scrutiny and expression, to the point that in some occasions he asked himself ‘Is this the building or its caricature?’