EMBT ganó en 2011 el concurso para diseñar el nuevo campus para la Escuela de Negocios de la Universidad de Fudan, en Xiamen, una de las más antiguas de China. In 2011 EMBT won the competition for the design of the new campus of the Business School of Fudan University, Xiamen, one of the oldest in China.
time, something essential for architects, otherwise we stagnate. Normally when I teach, and Enric did something similar, I like to suggest topics we have on the table without time to develop as a professional studio: theoretical approaches, thoughts, idealism. - As we saw during your stay in Santiago, EMBT is particularly interested in receiving students for internships as a way of linking the academy with the office. What is the spirit behind this choice? This happened spontaneously. Students began arriving saying that they had won a scholarship to be with us. In the beginning you say yes, but when they started to come five or six at once ... Then we organized with a period of entry and a way of working that allowed us to receive young architects or students to work in projects for a short period. Thanks to this we develop models, produce drawings and collages, develop research. Then I realized that rather than having a professional studio I had a school, and that’s how in the year 2012 the Enric Miralles Foundation was born, where we precisely have a school that also relates to the office. We hold exhibitions, investigate documents, but above all do not want to put Enric in a box as a museum piece. No, Enric is in the spirit of all young architects who want to develop new things. I’m very much involved, like the team that began with us. - How many people are part of the studio and how are they organized? What new projects are you working on today and how particularly are they being addressed? The number of people is given by the capacity of the tables in the office, among young people, interns and architects. And the tables hold 35-40 people. Together we tackle various projects of different nature. We are finishing the design of the campus of Fudan University and we are also with a new project in Paris for the Grand Paris subway station, on the peripheral line, with strong cultural and artistic components. But we do not only do large or urban projects. In fact we are designing Christmas lights for the Rambla and we love it. These are projects that we finish quickly and see right away, and which help us carry out longer projects.
- Of contemporary architects alive, who do you admire and why? Many, though there is none I admire as much as Enric. I was sure that he had a special spirit. But there are certainly many architects with a great, strong talent. Lately I found myself in a competition with Steven Holl, we went out to dinner in Moscow, started to know each other. He even proposed a manifest among those who were there on those of us who make architecture because we like it and because we really want this beautiful spirit behind good architecture disseminated beyond practical concerns. We shall see if time allows us to write it, because afterwards we come back to our work and we forget. - What is your relationship with academia today? What do you think about the teaching of contemporary architecture? Teaching architecture has always been special. When studying the Bauhaus I saw it was a school where architecture was considered something magical and where it was almost mandatory upon entering Gropius studio to design some drawings. I come from Spanish and Italian tradition in which professionals usually split their careers with teaching. That’s wonderful because ‘you lose’ some of your time to be among creative thinking, with the younger generation, you give and learn all the
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