Vivienda (home) in Spanish is the present participle of the verb vivir. The home is something that has to be lived, like a diary that contains notes of what has to be done. Here the ‘vivienda’ will end up forming a ‘convivienda’, a place delimited in the earth where human life unfolds and is shared favouring a well plaited knot of human lives. The analysis of the home encloses a theory of the ‘constructed place’ (house) that, in turn, is tributary of an anthropology outlined in its connection with that place. In the absence of technical literature and recognised authorities on which to rest, Alvaro Galmés resorts to poets, novelists, philosophers and any creator that has given significant news about this ‘dwelling’. He sets out with patience and delicacy this recollecting work to unhurriedly register, with very uncommon sensibility and deepness, all the folds, creases, sinuosity and very subtle nuances of human intimacy in the founded and inhabited house.

For many authors the idea of the becoming has been the object of studies and also a source of inspiration in philosophical discourses. From the Pre-Socratics to Gilles Deleuze more recently, the thought that attempts to go beyond analysis, description or reproduction of the real, with the clear objective of transforming it without introducing stable constrictions, has taken the becoming as the main figure, on some occasions with full prominence, on others in an underground manner. In the field of architecture, which is a discipline with enormous possibilities of transforming the real, a discourse of the becoming has not been so usual. When this sort of discourse has turned up in architectural spheres the tendency has been either to present a possible architectonic becoming as a merely adaptive positive process; that is in the plane of the superstructure in Marxist terms or it has been done in the structural plane from a negative assessment; that is as a purely coercive device. This collection of essays wants to look into a third via, which only appears from the previous ones which must necessarily precede it, by vaguely introducing a critic apparatus that architectural discourses have been incorporating only very recently from scenic arts: the category of the performative.

This book wants to remember and pay tribute to the exciting history of the re-founding of modern architecture in Spain that took place in the second half of the twentieth century and paradoxically came from commissions of religious character.

In a particularly dark period of our recent history, where culture was controlled and suppressed by censorship to a great extent, the eagerness for modernity of the generation of architects graduated after the Civil War, and society in general, found its best channel of expression through one of the institutions that was not under suspicion: the Church.

This circumstance brought about proposals that circulated between experimentation and utopia configuring a truly avant-garde of cultural advance. The projects and works of Fisac, Fernández del Amo, Sota, Cabrero, Aburto, Laorga, Sáenz de Oíza, Corrales, Vázquez Molezún, Carvajal, García de Paredes and many others whose counting would make this list endless, comprise a body worthy of notice and study, also because they are the explanation and the foundations of contemporary Spanish architecture.

This book has been published thanks to a crowd-funding campaign organized by La Tahona Cultural. Ediciones Asimétricas wish to specifically express its gratitude to the enthusiastic collaboration of every one of our micro-sponsors: Inés Díaz Tabera, Isabel Gª de Paredes de Falla, José Mª Clémen Cristalli, Alberto Porras Barrios, Ana D, David H. Pereyra, Elisabete de Matos, Francisco Javier López Martínez, Luis Fernando Gonzalo Bergasa, Mónica Morales Segura, José Moreno, Uque del Campo García, Virginia Cabrera Dantart, Bartomeu Jané Areny, Federico García Barba, Juan-Cruz Sola Valdericeda, Ángel Cordero Ampuero, Antonio Estrella Lara, Alessandro Coppola, José Antonio Alfaro Lera, EUTECA SL, Andrés Iraizoz García, Alberto Ruiz Colmenar, Matilde Fernández-Cid Enríquez, Ángela Gªde Paredes, Gabriel López Pérez, Cristina Sánchez Alonso, Miguel Sotos Fernández-Zúñiga, Esteban Fernández-Cobián, Esperanza Gimeno Robledano, Elena Miret Establés, Elena Martín García, Fátima Rebaque Gómez, Guillermo García-Badell Delibes, Ingrid Campo-Ruiz, Javier Alberola Peiró, Joaquín Casado de Amezúa Vázquez, Joaquín Naval Mas, José Rivero Serrano, Juan Enrique Álvarez, Lucía C. Pérez Moreno, Lucía Casero de la Calle, Luis Franco Lahoz, María José Pizarro Juanas, Marta Menéndez San Juan, Marta Vilas Rodriguez, Marta García Carbonero, Miguel Martínez, Nuria Micaela Ruiz García, Carlota Pascual Sequeros, Pedro Castro Cruz, Javier Pérez-Herreras, Pedro Caro González, Raimundo Bambó Naya, Raúl Moreno Guerra, Rubén Muñoz Rodríguez, Concha Roa Cachero, Rafael Torres Sáenz de Santa María, Sonia Díez Santos, Mauro Sullam, Sergio de Miguel García, Sergio Sebastián Franco, Fernando Ramos Muñoz, Sonia Villaseca Pérez, Aranxa Aguirre, Pablo M. Millán Millán, Belén Cubillo Cubillo, Carme Sala López, Basilio Tobías Pintre, Martina y Ernesto del Olmo de la Cruz, BmasC Arquitectos, Álvaro Marzo Ruíz, Ana Cubillo Cubillo, Beatriz Matos Castaño, Francisco Javier Álvarez Atarés, Berna González Harbour, Carmen Pinart, Catina Avendaño Martínez, BraveSpinDoctors, Luis Cubillo Cubillo, David García-Asenjo Llana, Elena García Crespo, Estudio Entresitio, Pau Soler Serratosa, Eusebi Solà i Gomfaus, Francisco Martínez Romero, Javier Arizón Fanlo, Ignacio Álvarez Rendueles, Carlos J. Irisarri Martínez, María Jiménez-Herrera, María Orusco y Lorenzo Delgado, Manuel Borobio Sanchíz, Miriam García García, María José Cantón Góngora, María José Díez Chueca, dps Project Management, Rafael Navarro, Rafael Povo, Susana Arias Aparicio, Isabel de Falla López, Ana Alberola Carbonell, Mª Luisa García Mansilla Llaneces, Paloma Jiménez Valverde, Enrique Arenas Laorga, Francisco Aparicio, Hubert Lionnez, Ignacio Valero, Jeffrey Brock, ets de Arquitectura de Sevilla, María García Mansilla Llaneces, Mateo Corrales Lantero, Mateo Ayala Calvo, Rafael Alberola Carbonell, Carmen Santos Oca, Francisco Javier Jiménez, Juan Biain Ugarte and Cristina Fontana Hidalgo, as well as a special mention to AGUILERA INGENIEROS for its invaluable help.

For its generous contribution to this editorial Project, we can only transmit our special gratitude to FUNDACIÓN FÉLIX GRANDA.