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Articles

No. 1 (2024): MODERN MASTERS: LEGACY AND VALIDITY

Housing in Parterre: from bones to skin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.63008/ram.v1i1.21
Submitted
December 20, 2023
Published
2024-05-20

Abstract

The work of Fisac ​​ goes through different periods, which seem to have no correspondence with each other. Beyond his commitment to a vernacular architecture of La Mancha, Fisac ​​patented some structures, called by himself bone-beams, which would become, for years, the hallmark of his projects: the bones as the support of his architecture.

However, there comes a time when Fisac ​​breaks with bone beams and begins to investigate the plastic possibilities of concrete, through his patent for flexible formwork. It could be said that Fisac ​​moves from ethics to the aesthetics of concrete; thus, he stated that “I have given a lot of importance to this plastic factor (…). Well, there was a period when, obsessed with spaces, I neglected the exterior.” Fisac ​​comes, in this way, to worry about the skin of its buildings; it’s the epidermis that relates his work to the environment.

This plasticist period began with the project for MUPAG, but where it culminated was in the project for housing in Parterre (1977), in his native Daimiel; and this, not only because of the entity of the project, but because its location -next to the church of Santa María- forces its author to decide between a continuous architecture or a purposeful architecture and, therefore, necessarily groundbreaking. Fisac ​​settles this debate between considering preexistences or not in other projects, opting to respect the previous architecture of the place. However, this is not the case on this occasion, and it is not superfluous to understand that the disappointment with the reception of his work in his town influenced Fisac's decision to give the Parterre building a hard, stone skin.

The result is an architectural corpus that is an example of the tensions between Fisac ​​and its town.