52|PROTAGONISTA and of your husband and partner’s work, opened its doors in Barcelona. How has your profession evolved since you became Enric Miralles partner in 1991? It has changed very much. Luckily, we are not aware of it happening because we are amid the changes but when we look back it is huge. When I started with Eric in the nineties, we were still in a very artisanal time. It seems to me that you could not find an architect who owned a computer in Barcelona. Everything was drawn by hand, design was made by hand... it seemed quite normal. Little by little, timidly, computers started to appear. First to write texts and later to make a special drawing. Now, if we want to see someone doing something by hand we have to expressly invent a different thing. Also, new markets have opened up and now we are talking with Chinese and Koreans. It is totally different. But, like I said, architects adapt; we are very feminine. Do you plan to release an unpublished text by Enric Miralles? Yes. Enric did not do much writing because he lacked time but when he did he was very poetic. Also, there are many drawings that could be published with a lot of care but it needs time and a team of people dedicated to its study. With time the Foundation will take care of these topics. Down here (in the Foundation headquarters), there is a piece called Paraíso (Heaven) that has only been seen in Japan. It has never been published. And the complete Works? Yes, with more time. That is a job to tackle in the future. You combine your work as architect with teaching in universities like Harvard. What advice do you give your students? I advise them to do the things they enjoy best. I have a daughter that just started studying architecture; I did not want her to. She would tell me “mom, I want to do art” and at the end: architecture! I keep telling her to do what she enjoys. At the university there is a lot of criticism; the professors seem to lead you towards a particular position. In reality, there are many fantastic and famous architects that were not considered to be very bright when they were students precisely because they had their own vision. This is of utmost importance: maintain your own vision, learn but do not get scared when you are told that you are a disaster as I suppose has happened to many people. To Gaudi, for example? I believe he was not a particularly bright student. Do you believe that your study has created a certain brand that can be identified with the Escuela de Barcelona? I think so. We have a few things that we like to call the “house dishes”, some pretty special “dishes”. Sometimes people get our buildings mixed up. “It is the Parliament. No, it is the University”, they say. They are very similar projects, they share certain characteristics .To us the Modernism Period is very important and it has influenced us. Your study has opened an office in China. Does the future of the profession depends on internationalization? Yes, we have always thought so. Not because we thought about the future of the profession but because we were open people interested in the rest of the world. At the beginning, I had a discussion with Enric: He would say that an architect could only perform in his own country and I would not agree. Little by little, we have realized that things are changing and now we, the architects, are all in some way projected towards the world. Today, with computers it is possible to be in direct contact with China on a daily basis. Twenty years ago this would have been crazy. Airplanes now are much more comfortable; it really is another world. To close, name a project that you have never done before and you would like to realize. You know, I cannot think of anything. This is a question that always comes up but I do not have any particular project planned because every work I get turns into a passion for me. What is important is finding that something experimental that makes it live and fresh. We always aim for this. Pabellón español en Shanghai 2010. Shanghai, China. Foto por Zheng Zhonghai.