Against Incontinence
An Interview with Emilio Tuñón and Carlos Martínez Albornoz,
by María Langarita and Víctor Navarro
Published in El Croquis 223 Tuñón y Albornoz 2015 2023.
The Arnolfini Portrait, by the Flemish painter Jan van Eyck, shows a rich young merchant and his wife, holding hands in a domestic interior in15th-century Bruges. A peculiar convex mirror between the couple reflects them from behind, showing us a third person in the room that we could not have otherwise seen. This specular effect, which reveals the presence of a disembodied being on the side of the viewer, influenced Velázquez in the construction of the magical work that is his Las Meninas. The mirror, which is both the painting's background and its centre of gravity, serves as a scenographical resource for revealing the invisible. It is perhaps no coincidence that this canvas was hanging on the walls of the now-defunct Real Alcázar in Madrid, a few metres from the Royal Collections Gallery, recently completed by Tuñón y Albornoz, the architecture office formed by Emilio Tuñón and Carlos Martínez de Albornoz. Like the mirror, the building summons the presence of a third person, Luis Moreno Mansilla, who, for 20 years and until his death in 2012, formed a team with Emilio Tuñón, and who was responsible for the winning proposal in the competition for the museum. Like in van Eyck's mirror, Mansilla's immaterial presence hovers over the intimacy of this conversation, sometimes as a tenuous reflection, sometimes invoked as a foundation, and other times as a countersubject.
When some famous bands break up and go on to form new ones, they turn their backs on the past and renounce their old music. Others, in contrast, aren't afraid to revisit their old repertoires and reclaim them. How do you feel with regard to this new project?
Carlos Albornoz: I think there are two very clear periods in the evolution of Mansilla y Tuñón. A first period, which runs from its foundation until Luis Díaz-Mauriño joins; and a second period, from that point until the death of Luis Moreno Mansilla. With Tuñón y Albornoz, I think there's a return to that initial stage, to the beginning. A return that probably began with the competitions we did after Luis died, in 2012: the Wine Dome, the National Museum of Afghanistan and the Rothschild and Vega Sicilia Winery. Really, it's like going back to the beginning to start down the same path again, although in a slightly different way. It reminds me, Emilio, of what you always say about the Museum in Zamora, that after you've made the outward journey and you're on your way back, you rediscover the things you left behind along the way &mdashmost of which are unfinished or waiting to be finished.
Emilio Tuñón: That's true. I take a cyclical view of life; the feeling of circling back to the same point. And that’s what we've been doing, revisiting; me, much more tired, and Carlos, with much more vigour. But it's important to understand that Mansilla y Tuñón and Tuñón y Albornoz aren't the same thing. A lot of people think there is more continuity than there really is. Carlos being here changes a lot, perhaps because of his youth, but also because of his pursuit of more… purity, as he calls it.
That period of reinvention came at a very difficult moment in our recent history. Because of Luis's death, of course, but also because of the economic, cultural and social crisis affecting the country, which forced every architecture studio to redefine their work or reimagine themselves. In a way, it was a moment of refoundation for everyone.
Emilio, at that point you had to deal with a change of scale and a change in clients. How did you come to the conclusion that you should join forces?
ET: We haven't talked about it much, but that's true. We went through the same thing that other studios were dealing with, although for a different reason. In any case, we played that game, so to speak, of going back to our origins, in order to arrive, apparently, at almost the same place, as though there had just been a small movement. With Luis's death we lost his lyrical nature. My background was more engineering-based, from the polytechnical university. Fundamentally, Luis was more from the Beaux Arts world. I think Carlos's incorporation was a natural step. At first, when Luis died, I thought about starting a cooperative.
A cooperative with the other people from the office?
ET: Exactly, a kind of cooperative for the office; but things turned out differently. Ultimately, Carlos was the right person. It just took us a while to see it. I think it was a good thing, because now it's as if Carlos is Emilio, and I'm Luis. Lately, I see myself as having less technical interests, and Carlos contributes the strength of the engineer. It's true that Carlos has his own interests, which, funnily enough, seem to connect more with the current interests of the architecture world &mdasha world from which, perhaps because of my age, I am beginning to feel a little more removed&mdash and which have resulted in a major reboot for the office. And I think that's fantastic, because we've gone back to a starting point where the two of us, as different as we are, create a multitude, comprised of the entire studio, and with the feeling of all moving along the same path.
That's one of the main virtues of your studio, the ability to integrate new arrivals into your creative project and to share your interests with them.
ET: I was just thinking that today! I was with a young guy who started a week ago, and suddenly, it felt like he was working like one more member of the studio. Although the office never became a cooperative, it has always given people freedom in their work and made them feel comfortable. They immediately start teaching one another. For example, there are certain fundamental members of the team, like Andrés Regueiro. He's a great teacher. He gets along well with people, and he's great at organizing. He's the team coach. I think feeling comfortable at work ends up generating synergies between people, which, curiously, end up converging in similar interests. It's quite surprising.
CA: Emilio, that relates to your teaching work. In the end, you're able to work the same way you teach. You create the feeling that we're all here learning, like in a classroom.
ET: That's lovely. I have the feeling that at the university I'm designing, and in the studio I'm teaching.
As we were saying, there was a change in the structure of the studio, but also in your commissions. In your more recent work, a scale has emerged that is very similar to the human body, which wasn't as present before.
ET: With Carlos, from the outset we decided to do small things. We were very interested in the domestic realm. It's true that there was a broader crisis in the profession, and there were no large commissions. But it's also true that we wanted to try things we hadn't done before. Carlos has a very precise perspective on the small scale, tactile elements, hedonistic elements. His having joined the studio is evident in that approach, which I appreciate, because when you see the houses, you understand that they all really have that aspect of being welcoming.
CA: It was a challenge for me, too. When I joined Mansilla y Tuñón, I worked on the same project, Atrio, for eight years. I hardly did anything else. The studio was designing museums, very large projects, and suddenly, this project came in, almost on a domestic scale. And at that point I thought: "I wonder how Luis and Emilio would go about this". I was very interested in how you might respond to an intervention on an existing, heritage building, conditioned by its previous form. You said to me once, Emilio: "Be careful with the first project you do, because that is what you'll end up doing for the rest of your life", and... here we are.