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Departamento De Proyectos Arquitectónicos Escuela Técnica Superior De Arquitectura Universidad Politécnica De Madrid Departamento de Proyectos Arquitectónicos Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura Universidad Politécnica de Madrid CALIFORNIA PRAGMATISTA 1900-1960 PROYECTO DOMÉSTICO COMO EXPRESIÓN Y LABORATORIO DEL MODO DE VIDA TESIS DOCTORAL autora: COVADONGA MARTÍNEZ-PEÑALVER, ARQUITECTA director: ALBERTO PIELTÁIN, DOCTOR ARQUITECTO MADRID OCTUBRE DE 2015 ÍNDICE INTRODUCCIÓN .......................................................................................................................... 9 Objetivos ..............................................................................................................9 Marco teórico .....................................................................................................12 Pertinencia .........................................................................................................20 Estado de la Cuestión .........................................................................................21 Notas previas ......................................................................................................22 ¿QUÉ FUERZAS CREARON Y RECREARON EL MODO DE VIDA CALIFORNIANO Y SU ARQUITECTURA? ....................................................................... 29 Oportunidad. Tabula rasa y clima privilegiado ...................................................31 Masa de recién llegados y lejanía .......................................................................36 Herencia mediterránea ......................................................................................41 ¿QUÉ ERA EL MODO DE VIDA CALIFORNIANO EN SU TRASLACIÓN A LA ARQUITECTURA DOMÉSTICA? .............................................................................. 51 Vida sana, informal y hedonista .........................................................................52 Relación con el medio e independencia .............................................................57 Identidad libre y progresista...............................................................................62 ¿QUIÉN ERA EL DESTINATARIO DE LA CASA CALIFORNIANA? ......................... 69 Grandes mecenas ...............................................................................................71 Liberales individualistas ......................................................................................77 Gente corriente ..................................................................................................85 La familia de clase media ....................................................................................93 El propio arquitecto ......................................................................................... 101 ¿QUÉ PAPEL JUGÓ LA ARQUITECTURA EN LA PROMOCIÓN DEL MODO DE VIDA CALIFORNIANO? ................................................................................. 111 Una forma de ser ............................................................................................. 112 Una forma de estar .......................................................................................... 117 CONCLUSIONES ................................................................................................................... 128 Técnica de proyecto ........................................................................................ 128 Principio y fin ................................................................................................... 129 Actitud pragmatista ......................................................................................... 134 Líneas abiertas por la investigación ................................................................. 136 Epílogo ............................................................................................................. 139 BIBLIOGRAFÍA ....................................................................................................................... 141 ANEXO Localizador de proyectos.................................................................................. 148 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 151 CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................... 167 3 AGRADECIMIENTOS Debo agradecer la generosidad de muchas personas que han contribuido al desarrollo de este trabajo. Estoy muy agradecida a Juan Herreros, con quien arranqué esta investigación. También agradezco a Alberto Pieltáin su impecable labor como director de tesis. A Iñaki Ábalos, Emilio Luque, Uriel Fogué, Jacobo García-Germán, Aurora Herrera, Eva Mtz.-Caraballo y Julia Arroyo les agradezco los consejos de tesis. En la ETSAM he recibido todo el apoyo que el departamento ha podido prestarme, estoy especialmente agradecida a Blanca García. Agradezco también el apoyo de todos mis compañeros de la universidad Ceu San Pablo, especialmente el de Diego García-Setién y el de Alejandro Gómez, que facilitó mi estancia en Edimburgo. Agradezco el apoyo desinteresado y amable de Cor Wagenaar y Soledad García Ferrari. Y el trato tan grato de Andy Shanken y su familia. De mi estancia en Berkeley debo agradecer el trabajo Miranda Hambro, Chris Marino y Waverly Lovell en los archivos. Estoy especialmente agradecida a todos los organizadores del California Design Colloquium en el que participé: Mark Treib, Margaret Crawford y Andrew Shanken. En los Ángeles disfruté de la hospitalidad de Isabel García y la amabilidad de Guillermo Honles y Emily Bills. También agradezco la cordialidad con la que nos recibió Julius Shulman en nuestra primera visita a su casa, cuando contaba con noventa y ocho años. “Daros una vuelta por la casa y luego charlamos”, nos dijo. Agradezco también la hospitalidad y la amistad de Yaiza Álvarez. Tengo mucho que agradecer a mi familia, todos colaboraron para que pudiera hacer las estancias doctorales. En particular mi madre y mi suegra me han prestado ayuda directa de todo tipo, imprescindible para organizarme en el día a día. Estoy especialmente agradecida a Alicia y Alfonso, sobre todo porque me rescataron en uno de los peores momentos de este proceso. Y además nunca me lo recuerdan. Agradezco mucho la confianza de mis amigos. Particularmente varios de ellos tienen una terca fe en mí que agradezco profundamente. Agradezco especialmente las revisiones de Carla Vigara y el apoyo de Ángeles García. Por último, agradezco muy sinceramente el apoyo de David Archilla y de nuestros niños. A ellos debo el mayor agradecimiento, en parte por todo lo que este proceso nos ha robado, pero también porque ellos inspiran el interés por el modo de vida que subyace a este trabajo. 5 ABSTRACT This doctoral thesis aims to display a design’s technic that is exemplified by the Californian experience and can be described in pragmatic terms. The Californian domestic architecture was the tangible expression of a life style and way of being that was Californian but also universal. Home’s designed for the everyday experience attended the individual, both the rich sponsors of their own domestic design and the low income liberal individualists in search of an affordable but optimum home. But the dreamed target was ordinary people and the typical middle class family, as they represented the dream of a truly democratic society. Many domestic experiments for them took the form of particular cases, often in the house of the architect, which acted as a laboratory in search of general solutions. Architects and clients shared the common desire of a new domestic space, involved in promoting a healthy, casual and hedonistic lifestyle and in communion with the air, nature and territory, which satisfied the own independent and entrepreneurial spirit of a free and progressive identity. The way of life was therefore a design material, sensitive to the forces that shaped the region and its society through its domestic space. The main one was the feeling of opportunity: California offered itself as a tabula rasa with an exotic climate; the dreamed paradise for successive generations of newcomers who, in the distance with the pre-established traditions of their homelands, found the greatest incentive for an experimental attitude in which lifestyle was seen as project material to formulate the domestic space. Thus, the Californian domestic project can be more than an aesthetic reference and a visual icon; it is also an example of a design’s technic that approaches the domestic project with an inquisitive spirit sustained by these abilities: receptivity to the physical, social and cultural context; capacity to dream and to experiment, carrying ideals into practice; attention to the user, even when it’s anonymous; and use of a common lexicon that returns all the power to the everyday vocabulary. The Californian experience is therefore, in this dissertation, just an example; a paradigmatic example of a project technique that conceives domestic space as an expression, and also as a laboratory, of the way of life. RESUMEN Esta tesis doctoral pretende desgranar una técnica de proyecto que la experiencia californiana ejemplifica y que puede ser descrita en términos pragmatistas. La arquitectura doméstica californiana fue la expresión tangible de una forma de ser y estar californiana pero también universal. El destinatario de esta arquitectura experimental y pragmática fue el individuo, tanto el gran mecenas como el liberal individualista de recursos moderados y aspiraciones infinitas; la gente corriente y, más
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