CIRCLE, TOPOGRAPHY AND TIME: SOME THOUGHTS ON A FORMAL SEQUENCE. FROM THE CENTER OF ARTISTIC RESTORATIONS, 1961, TO THE CITY OF FLAMENCO, 2004

Abstract

It was in January 2004 when the architecture studio SANAA entered the competition to design the City of Flamenco in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. Their uncompromising, rigorous proposal was a surprise as it dictated essentialized objectives and iconography, taking topography as its steering assignment. Now that some time has gone by, we may be in a better position to really appreciate what designs of this nature have really meant to our national architectural landscape from the 1960s onwards. This article is based and deepens on the meaning that some scholars like George Kubler confer to the idea of “series” in the shaping and passing of time. We have carefully choosen a particular period of time in which we transit through geometrical concepts like the circle, tridimensional ones like topography, and the very same passage of time. We go through some interdisciplinary project designs that extend form the early one for the Artistic Restoration Center by Higueras and Moneo in 1961; the Spanish Pavilion at the New York World´s Fair by Higueras in 1964, the proposal for the Madrid Exhibition Center by Fullaondo and Manterola, also in 1964; to finally reach the peculiar scenery of Sad Hill in 1966.