Moneo in the presentation of the exhibition. /
An exhibition in Pamplona brings together the projects that the architect built on his land, from the expansion of the bullring to the Bodega de Arínzano
A tour of the auditorium of the Royal and General Archive of Navarre is a walk between drawings, plans, photographs and architectural projects, a succession of documents that have been rescued from drawers and cases that Rafael Moneo kept with zeal in his study in Madrid . All of them have come to life in “Rafael Moneo in Navarra”, the retrospective exhibition that reviews his work in Navarra that began in Tudela in the 1960s.
The exhibition, curated by the architects Belén Esparza, Curro Blasco and Sixto Marín, was inaugurated on the architect’s 85th birthday. After passing through the Navarran capital, the exhibition will arrive at the María Forcada Foundation in Tudela from February 17 next year.
Tour of his works
Rafael Moneo in Navarra is the result of an illusion shared by the curators themselves and other professional colleagues who contacted institutions in Pamplona and Tudela to present their proposal. “We got together enthusiastically to fulfill a debt that this land owes to Rafael Moneo, which was to hold an exhibition of all his work throughout Navarre and his long career,” explained Belén Esparza.
Focused on the life and work of the Navarrese architect, one of the figures with the greatest international projection of the last half century in Spain, the exhibition proposes a professional and human journey through Moneo’s career that begins with his childhood in Tudela and continues with the works made in Navarra over six decades of creation. The projects correspond to works carried out in Tudela such as the residential building on Eza Street (1965-1966), the Elvira España Public Schools (1966-1971), the Casa Añón (1974-1976), the Real Casa de Misericordia (1983 ) or the House of Culture project in the old convent of San Francisco (2003-2010). Regarding Pamplona, the exhibition shows the Plaza de los Fueros (1970-1975), the Royal and General Archive of Navarra (1995-2003) and the University Museum of Navarra (2008-2014). Other projects are the Bodega de Arínzano (1991-2002) or an unknown work that he presented for the Hospedería de San Miguel de Aralar (1965).
Pencil drawings
The precision with which Rafael Moneo carried out each of his works in the 1960s is shown in some original pencil drawings on parchment paper executed by the architect. Some designs on paper, with a fragile appearance, but precise lines that show the importance that drawing has had in his professional career. “When we traveled to his studio in Madrid and saw the quality and sensitivity of these works, it became clear that it was his drawings that spoke and told the architecture,” said the curator.
His most personal profile is also present in the sample. Photographs, reviews, interviews and personal documentation provided by the architect himself allow us to trace the biographical sketch of Rafael Moneo, from his birth in Tudela, his childhood, youth, training and professional beginnings, until 1996, the year in which he was awarded the Prize Architecture Pritzker. “His parents had treasured many fond memories of his son. He had to show the reality of a person who was born in Tudela at the time of the war and who has come to conquer the world of architecture».
“I’m not going back to Navarra, I really feel like I haven’t left”
Consider that certain words have fallen into oblivion to talk about feelings, such as privilege, gratitude and emotion. But Rafael Moneo wanted to rescue them this Friday to express how he feels about the exhibition. «The best thing one can do is feel grateful, gratitude emerges, which is also a way of loving others. It is also a privilege to have been born into a community that helped launch my career as an architect. And I have not been able to stop being moved when I found the drawings of some works from those 60s. This affection that they have shown me is a reciprocal affection».
He acknowledged that some of the projects carried out in Navarra have left a deeper mark on him, such as the expansion of the Pamplona bullring. “It meant a lot to me because it was important, much more than the domestic work I had done until then”, although he added that all the works are important to him. «The most an architect can aspire to is that a work has the courage to become something that feels anonymous».
In addition to his architectural work, the exhibition shows the most personal and familiar profile of Moneo. “I have rediscovered a good part of what my past has been, those years that go from adolescence to youth and what is the beginning of a career” and recalled the pride with which his father followed his first professional years . “Here are many of the papers that my parents kept and the exhibition could not have been presented like this if one had not thought that it is part of a family.”
Although he has been living in Madrid for more than sixty years, Moneo does not feel far from his homeland. «It may seem that I am returning to Navarra, but I really feel that I have not left. Here is everything I have done in Navarra and, curiously, everything is built. There are no projects, but works that offer what my career has been, without cheating or cardboard. There is no greater satisfaction.”