The first time I encountered the work of Albert Campa Baez was watching one of the episodes of the documentary series Praise of light. Each of the 12 episodes, directed by Juan Manuel Martin de Blas in collaboration with Manuel Vicente, is dedicated to one contemporary architect, mostly from Spain. That series, broadcast on TVE in 2003, I just can't get enough of it, and I believe I'm not the only one. In the title of the episode about Camp Baeza, next to his name, it says Light and harmony. It is very accurately titled. The fact that the word "light" is already in the name of the entire series did not prevent it from being repeated in that case. The reason is very clear to the informed reader of this text. Here it is enough to mention the title of one of Camp Baeze's writings. He reads Architectura sine luce nulla architectura est. Therefore, without light there is no architecture. That title precisely synthesizes his poetics.
In addition to his design work, Campo Baeza was a professor at the Higher Technical School of Architecture (ETSAM) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid, where he studied and received his doctorate in 1982. He spent most of his professional life in the same city. Madrid is an orange city. The terracotta tone is mainly given by brick. The first constructed buildings of Camp Baeze in the area of Community of Madrid - and not only there but in general - are dominated by that material. Since the seventies, the houses of García de Valle and Fominaj in Alhete, and during the eighties the school and kindergarten in San Sebastián de los Reyes, the school in San Fermín and the co-author project of the social housing building La Viña in Vallecas.
Since 1988, with the Turegano house in Posuelo de Alarcon, the architect's white buildings have begun to appear in Madrid. In the 1990s, the house of García Marcos in Valdemor was built and the school in Velilla de San Antonio was expanded in the same color, that is, a synthesis of all colors. That each subsequent building is not exclusively in white is shown by the De Blas house in the neighborhood of Sevilla la Nueva, whose basic block or podium is left in the color of concrete, as well as the Rotonda house in Tres Olivos, recently built, for which very light shades of stone were used. In other recent projects, the architect returns to completely white surfaces, for example, in the complex of sports halls and teaching buildings within the campus of the University of Francisco de Vitoria. White is nicely complemented by terracotta orange, it is in harmony with it.
Camp Baeze's opus related to Madrid and its area is incomplete without his unrealized projects. Among them are two extensions of the ETSAM complex from the eighties. There is also the Balseiro house in Ciudad Lineal from 1976 and the Pino house in Vikalvar from 1999. Not mentioning such projects would mean overlooking the architect's reflections related to certain places where we cannot see the designed objects, because they do not physically exist, but are present there in an absent way.
In the text The crushed city: on the socialization of soil, Campo Baeza writes that Madrid can function without problems through the public transport system. He proposes to abolish the automobile industry. Cars are not needed in Madrid, they waste time, create congestion and pollution. He adds that he uses the subway to go to work and that he does not have a car. It also points to the problem of investor architecture. This scourge is even greater in Belgrade, a "crushed city" that could also live without a car, if only it had a subway. I just used it when I - from the Peñagrande district, where I was staying - traveled to the city center to meet Campo Baez. I arrived very easily.
The architect's office is located at 4 Almirante Street, in Chueca. I had a very pleasant conversation with him. At one point, he drew my attention to the music that was playing in the background the whole time we were talking. I didn't even notice her until he pointed her out to me. It was sacral a cappella music, which seems not to be heard, but enriches the space with a special atmosphere. I am thinking about the relationship between the experience of mystical, spiritual music and the contemplation of pure forms in architecture. We talked primarily about his writings and objects, and he showed me a model of his latest project in Madrid, executed two years ago, which is an altar panel for the Basilica of Milagrosa. He also asked me how to say "thank you" in Serbian. When I answered him, he said it and wrote it as part of a dedication on one of his books. I am grateful to him for that very considerate gesture.
After the conversation, I visited the mentioned church. I had to sit in it and wait for the mass to end in order to approach the altar and look at it up close. Then I went to Arawaka to see live and his 2015 Kala house. The Raumplan house is also called differently. As is customary, the houses of Campa Baeze are generally named after the surnames of their owners. And that house is in a quiet and green area, outside the hustle and bustle of the city. It can be said that the silence of its architecture corresponds to the silence of the place where it is located.
