José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún

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José Antonio Corrales (1921-2010) and Ramón Vázquez Molezún (1922-1993) studied architecture in Madrid in the post-war years. Corrales began his professional career as a collaborator with the architecture studio run by his uncle, Luis Gutiérrez Soto. Without access to private commissions, he decided that his professional career would need to be based on public competitions if he wanted to work on his own. With this in mind, in 1952 he joined forced with his classmate Ramón Vázquez Molezún.

Ramón Vázquez Molezún, a native of La Coruña, obtained a scholarship to attend the Spanish Academy in Rome a year after his graduation. During his time in Rome, he worked as a correspondent for architecture magazines and completed several (unbuilt) projects that received international recognition: for example, at the Hispano-American Biennial and with the National Architecture Award for his design for the Museum of Modern Art in Rome (1951). This last project served as a jumping off point for a personal investigation of exhibition spaces using a modular structure associated with organic growth. He would later use this same strategy in various competition entries, such his design for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, and it was ultimately materialised in the famous Spanish Pavilion in Brussels that used hexagonal modules.

Now professional associates, Corrales and Molezún broke onto the Spanish architectural scene with works that were not exempt from controversy and strayed from the established models – still very much dominated by rationalism – to branch off into formal and chromatic investigations. In these early years, they were often misunderstood by their clients and colleagues, and their designs were called controversial, risky and scandalous. In spite of everything, they remained true to their architectural principles and one of the keys to their success was the conjunction of their two contrasting personalities: while Corrales focused on technique, control and constructive perfection, Molezún’s work was more poetic, plastic and respectful of the landscape.

Following an exhibition in Florence in 1951, Molezún was deeply impressed by Wright’s work. His inquisitive and curious nature led him to undertake a long motorcycle trip through Europe (travelling over 100,000 km), which was central to his education since he came into contact with the artistic and architectural avant-garde of the time. In the same period, he also won several prizes for his artistic work, and he collaborated with architects like Joaquín Vaquero Palacios on the design of the Artists’ Residence for the University City of Madrid, which was never built.

Back in Madrid, Corrales and Molezún’s first project as a team was the Colegio de Salesianos in Herrera de Pisuerga, a surprising school building that plays with sloping roofs adapted to the landscape, built using an industrial metal structure that has sometimes been likened to Melnikov’s Paris Pavilion. Together with Alejandro de la Sota they built the Children’s Residence in Miraflores de La Sierra. However, the Spanish Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair is the project that best sums up this first period of professional collaboration between the two architects: on the one hand, the hexagonal module exquisitely resolves all the construction problems – roof, drainage, lighting – while adapting perfectly to the landscape, an irregular plot with a steep slope, and bringing it into the interior of the building. The colour palette, which is often forgotten due to the black and white images from the time, was a central element of the building. In fact, the use of bright and daring colours made it easier for their buildings to stand out in the urban fabric and become landmarks, as has been the case with the Bankunión Building in Madrid.

Their lesser-known works include those related to social housing. They worked in the towns of Fuencarral, Almendrales and Gran San Blas and, together with García de Paredes, they designed the Colonia de los Traperos. In many cases, Corrales and Molezún dealt with the design of schools or religious facilities (such as the chapel of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in El Poblado de El Grado, Huesca), but in others, such as Gran San Blas, they undertook the construction of 1,500 housing units on Plot G.

Also as a result of Vázquez Molezún’s friendship with Jesús Huarte Beaumont, the office received multiple commissions from the Grupo Huarte construction company. Ultimately, they designed a residence for Jesús Huarte in the neighbourhood of Puerta de Hierro in Madrid, which was the most significant private home of their professional career, although not the only one. Another of their major clients was the INI (National Institute of Industry), where Molezún collaborated in parallel with his professional activity with Corrales, and for which he designed multiple buildings in collaboration both with his usual partner and with other architects. In these designs, the architects carried out an important investigation of construction techniques and materials, notably in the thermal power plants for Alcúdia in Mallorca and Compostilla in León. Their extensive production of industrial architecture included the Profidén laboratories and the buildings for IBM, AVIACO and RENFE, all of them designed by Molezún with other architects. Consequently, especially after 1975, his relationship with Antonio Corrales and his dedication to their joint studio was much less intense.

The documentary legacy of Vázquez Molezún, kept in the archives of the Madrid Architects’ Association, is extensive and highly relevant because of the large number of international competitions in which he participated, either with Corrales or other architects. The competitions he won and which were built include the corporate headquarters of several banks, such as the aforementioned Bankunión, and the headquarters of Banco Pastor – both on Paseo de la Castellana – the Bank of Spain in Badajoz, the auxiliary building for the Bank of Spain in Madrid, and the Banco del Noroeste in La Coruña.

On the whole, it could be said that Vázquez Molezún’s architectural legacy outstrips in both quantity and relevance what he built together with Antonio Corrales. According to Fernández Galiano, Molezún was “the most gifted architect and the most captivating individual of his generation, tirelessly inventive and overwhelmingly generous. His technical creativity and congeniality made him the architect most admired and loved by his contemporaries: a very rare combination.”

Although his work was very prolific, it has been especially mistreated by the passage of time. Unfortunately, many of his works, such as the school in Herrera de Pisuerga, were prematurely demolished, and others are in a lamentable state of conservation even today.

Bibliography

FERNÁNDEZ, Borja, Corrales y Molezún: arquitectura oníricamente racional in Archdaily (Blog online), 2019.

MONDÉJAR NAVARRO, Juan Manuel, Una aproximación a la arquitectura de J. A. Corrales y R. V. Molezún. El grupo parroquial Jesús Maestro de Valencia [phd Thesis], Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia, 2016.

CORRALES, José Antonio, “Corrales/Molezún: Pabellón de España en la Exposición universal de Bruselas 1958 Madrid 1959”, en Arquitecturas Ausentes del Siglo XX 5, Ministerio de Vivienda, Madrid, 2004.

CENTELLAS, Miguel, ed., Documentos de Arquitectura 33 [José Antonio Corrales / Ramón Vázquez Molezún], Delegación de Almería del Colegio de Arquitectos de Andalucía Oriental, Almería, 1996.

“Casa Huarte en Madrid – Edificio Selecciones – Edificio Profidén – Casa Cela en Palma de Mallorca de Ramón Vázquez Molezún y José Antonio Corrales”, in Arquitectura 94, Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid, Madrid, 1966, pp. 1-24.