Archives 5. Manuel Gallego

Title: Archives 5. Journal of Architecture. Manuel Gallego Edited by: C2C Proyecto Editorial Language: English and Spanish Manuel Gallego is an architect whose work is impossible to decipher if it is not interpreted from the territory that holds it. In other words, Manuel Gallego's work defines, constructs and reveals the territory that contains it. His architecture might come first to define a posteriori, through the mechanisms developed by its author, the surrounding context. An architecture that physically and culturally constructs a territory. Manuel Gallego es un arquitecto cuya obra es imposible descifrar si no se interpreta desde el territorio que la alberga. Dicho, mejor, de otro modo, la obra de Manuel Gallego define, construye y desvela el territorio que la contiene. Es, quizá, su arquitectura la que viene en primer lugar para definir a posteriori mediante los mecanismos desarrollados por su autor el contexto circundante. Una arquitectura que construye física y culturalmente un territorio. An architect trained in Madrid under the guidance of Alejandro de la Sota, master of Spanish austere modernity, Manuel Gallego has developed all his work in the territory to which he himself belongs in: Galicia. Rarely is it possible to find such a singular and outstanding work with this exceptional capacity to crystallise the character and idiosyncrasy of a specific place. It would be a mistake, however, to limit ourselves to understanding Manuel Gallego's work exclusively from his “Galician corporeality and character”. The inheritance of Galician popular architecture, the materiality and texture that define it, and the particular climatological and environmental conditions of Galicia are of course fundamental to interprete his architecture.