It is not hazardous to say that our relationship with architecture begins on the day we are born, from the moment we take our first look around us at the very dawn of our existence. From the moment our eyes open we see the beings that constitute our closest family environment all around us. These people will accompany us throughout our lives, yet they are not isolated but located within a physical context: walls, ceiling, floor, space, dimensions, shapes... We learn to name these concepts and we assimilate the notion of house, street, town, city... In short, architecture welcomes us into the world and will never be a stranger: like a family member, it will always be with us.
Whether in the city or the countryside, scenes that we find attractive inevitably contain an element that we can relate to man’s efforts through the ages to master nature and make it habitable in line with our needs. The origins of architecture art, science, technology and all that it entails are lost in the mists of time, but throughout its evolution one essential and indispensable element has remained constant: creativity.
It was creativity, that inner drive, that genius, that prompted humankind to build their first dwellings, turning their cave spaces into homes as shelter from the inclemency of a hostile natural environment. We continued to evolve, forging a slow and steady pathway towards our contemporary environment. The evolution of the habitat in which humanity has developed, the composition of homes, towns, cities and their facilities and services, has been the result of creative endeavour applied to the evolution of our physical environment.
Of course, the team working for Marcos Sáinz, the founder of Estudio MS, still uphold these characteristics and principals, and his creative work has the same origins: perception borne of gazing at our surroundings; analysis and abstraction from what we have observed; the application of criteria such as utility, beauty and necessity; a heightened responsibility to sensitivity and little else. Beyond these factors, training is of the utmost importance because that which is seen, perceived, felt and thought like a dreamlike vision must be given shape by applying technical expertise in order to bring the work to fruition. These skills have been honed alongside the evolution of humankind and, therefore, of architecture.
Architecture has always sought to meet social needs and to foresee new aspirations. At one time, architects were public servants, and they should still be so, resolving problems for people by way of proximity, contributing their ideas and creativity with an eye to efficiency, utility, beauty and also, fundamentally, by implementing the best solutions at low and not exorbitant costs. Of course, architects also have to leave their mark and personal style on each work; doing otherwise would be illegitimate.
It would be unfair not to mention the importance of landscape architecture in the unity of the whole, because gardens improve the environment; they humanise and dignify landscapes, houses, streets and cities; they make spaces friendly; they sweeten the atmosphere; they clean the air we breathe; they absorb noise and they soothe our spirits.
We must not forget that on the path that stretches from initial abstraction to final idea and its realisation, a dialogue is established between architecture and culture, geography or landscape, as well as the style and way of life of those who dwell there. Influences appear in that dialogue as a product of smooth, rich and permeable historical communication. And so features and elements that come from elsewhere are added to local architecture, creating innovative symbioses with established traditions. These cultural influences ramble from one area to another and then go back, nuanced, on a wonderful return journey with structural or decorative additions as mementos of the adventure.
Nothing is permanent; everything flows. The passage of time leaves effects on all existence, and the city itself changes and transforms, never remaining on the sidelines of this inexorable reality. It grows; it provides facilities and services, progressing like everything human. These changes, these mutations, are an effect of architecture, which transforms whilst also changing how we look at it, feel it and live with it.
From now on, these will be the images that express the spirit that guides the Estudio MS team in the way they understand and develop architecture. However, they are not sufficiently precise to pin down the essential importance of the concepts of family, team, group and the rational and human development of architecture. Just as within a family, feelings, principles and values are transmitted from generation to generation. In towns and cities, this transmission is multiplied and those values, ideas and feelings are perfected. This creates a collective social consciousness; architecture, through developing professional practice, has a basic social duty to maintain and enhance the social phenomenon of exchange, facilitating coexistence, dialogue and understanding.
To this end we must realise that there are human lives, often in the form of family units, behind the facades, so buildings must create spaces for interaction and dialogue. However, from that family unit, life flows outwards, coexistence must spread and the exchange of ideas and values must occur to create more just and equitable societies. This enhances the constant and permanent mission that every human being must undertake to perfect the world, to ease the flow of life. We trust that this is the pathway in which we must channel our work.
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