Bitarte means elusive space – intangible, immaterial, space that is neither interior nor exterior. It is a concept of space between two places, what the Japanese call engawa. I studied and applied this concept of space in an academic project led by Daniel Serafimovski and Pierre d’Avoine at the Royal Danish Academy School of Architecture in Copenhagen.
According to Jorge Oteiza, and together with Junichiro Tanizaki’s reflections on light and shadow, this void, an articulator of space, creates the engawa, this ambiguous and necessary place that has inspired the name of our firm. Because bitarte/engawa is a space with its own personality, elusive, in-between, a space that articulates and organises.
The serenity that characterises Tadao Ando and that Alberto Campo Baeza refers to is the exact philosophy of Bitarte. This intermediate space of pause, of emptiness, is the calm that nourishes our firm and feeds Bitarte’s creative impulse.
“I am interested in the dialogue with the architecture of the past, but the past must be filtered through my own vision and experience”
Extract from fundacion.arquia.es
Tadao Ando (Osaka, 1941) The award-winning Japanese architect, winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture in 1995 along with many other international honours, hung up the boxing gloves of his youth to train as an architect without ever attending a school of architecture. A self-taught education based on reading and travel through Africa, Europe and the United States, the massive influence of the modern movement and a meticulous study of traditional Japanese architecture, support his attempt to reconcile modernity and tradition in his work. “I am interested in the dialogue with the architecture of the past, but the past must be filtered through my own vision and experience”. Extract from fundacion.arquia.es
The trailer for the documentary on the Koshino house by Tadao Ando, released on DVD by the Caja de Arquitectos Foundation. Director: Rax Rinnekangas
