The space, the city, the man

ARQUITEXTOS
By Luis J. Grossman-(Infinito/LA Nacion)-178 pages-($ 29)

Arquitextos (a joint Edition edition Infinite and the NATION) is integrated by 52 articles, chosen of between more than 400 than already it takes to writings his author for his weekly column, of the same name, in the supplement Architecture of this newspaper. Perhaps for the habitual readers of the architect Luis J. Grossman (who are many, and not only of the scope of its profession), they will lack some of which they had selected for their own personal anthology; for that only now they begin in these arquitextos , they are all the essential subjects of the world of the architecture that Grossman - who directs his own study and has dictated for more than twenty years Architectonic Design in the Faculty of Architecture of the Air University Good dominates so much in the theory as actually and she has dedicated herself to develop with total devotion and level and accessible language.

Divided in three sections: "City", "Architecture and design" and "Personal", the book crosses with admirable synthesis from the great architectonic conceptions to the daily reflection of a sensible inhabitant to all the problems of its city. For that reason, it is impossible not to also agree when one is to detest of the inexhaustible avalanche of automobiles, the visual and environmental pollution, the degradation of the green areas or the scorn by the peatonal ("It is necessary to vindicate for the street - that basic piece of the urban design the category of authentic place"), but when it rescues the indescribable joy to belong - to Buenos Aires, in this case and of enjoying that so strange and admirable thing that it is the urban landscape and that produces "a space rejoicing".

The architecture critic (Grossman is founding partner of the Committee the Critical International of Architecture, CICA) reveals itself widely in arquitextos like "Bauhaus or the confirmation of the doubts", "Art, madness and architecture", "About a radicalized architecture" or "Also are restrictions in the clinic the Prairie", with accurate judgments and plenary sessions of refined irony.

The third part, "Personages", pay tribute to great names of the architecture: among others, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruno Zevi, Gustav Vigeland and the Argentineans Eduardo Sacriste and Marina Waisman. There is also a moved memory, in "the necessary life", for the journalist, poet and friend Jose Daniel Viacava, who directed by many years the section Architecture of the NATION.

Paraphrasing the title of this last arquitexto, he can say that a necessary book is this one: in the first place, because it is good for returning to read, reunited in book, texts on architecture that appeared in newspaper (as well as it habitually happens with columns or notes on policy and economy); and secondly, because these arquitextos are written, with great educational and prosa spirit it polishes, by an architect with experience that also are a Buenosairean of heart, essential condition for "painting his village", that is the only way "to paint the world" and that the readers are thankful infinitely.