Casa en Aravaca

Perhaps the most attractive thing, and certainly evident in the house that José Antonio Corrales built in Aravaca in 1982 (Project 1977) is to see an architecture devoid of direct references, to see a way of doing things that is fresh but at the same time full of skill and wisdom, to see, in short, such an intensely creative attitude that has managed to get rid of the burden that in many cases is an encyclopaedic knowledge of our architectural past. Knowledge which, on the other hand, he obviously has, but which he handles in the manner of those who are determined to create their own language and which arises from seeing, meditating, digesting and doing a lot of architecture. Quizá lo más atractivo, y desde luego evidente en la casa que José Antonio Corrales construyó en Aravaca en el año 1982 (Proyecto de 1977) lo constituye el ver una arquitectura carente de referencias directas, el ver una manera de hacer fresca pero a la vez llena de oficio y sabiduría, ver en definitiva, una actitud tan intensamente creativa que ha sabido zafarse del lastre que en muchos casos supone un conocimiento enciclopédico de nuestro pasado arquitectónico. Conocimiento que por otra parte es obvio que tiene, pero que maneja al modo de aquellos empecinados en crear un lenguaje propio y que surge de ver, meditar, digerir y hacer mucha arquitectura. Corrales cannot evade, and certainly does not pretend to in this house, his condition as an architect trained in the discipline and principles of the modern movement, an attitude which, besides honouring him, does not prevent him from continuing to elaborate his own formal world in which subtly suggested modes appear which may evoke Terragni, Eileen Grey or even Czech rationalist architectures. But all of them are no more than evocations, preferences that denote his creative maturity, intensely lyrical and far removed from the intellectual and literary mannerisms to which we have become so accustomed of late.