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2G 51 MGM Morales Giles Mariscal
Laurent Beaudouin, Sara de Giles, José Morales, Carles Muro, Ciro Najle
 With the death of Franco, Spanish architecture came out of its isolationist shell and subscribed to the international tendencies of the day, whilst always incorporating the special features of a rich and at the same time self-sufficient tradition. Since that time there have been many Spanish architects who have carved out an internationally renowned career for themselves-from Rafael Moneo and Enric Miralles to members of the younger generation like RCR and Tuñón + Mansilla-but even more important is the substratum of small studios concerned with quality architecture that have gradually emerged throughout the country.
Away from the traditional focal points of Spanish architecture-Madrid and Barcelona-, the Sevillean studio MGM Arquitectos stands out among this new batch of Spanish architects, adding a peripheral condition of sorts to the substratum of good workmanship. MGM’s outstanding work with skins and their materials is not restricted to merely epidermal issues, but rather envelops and contains a whole series of intermediary spaces that are neither exterior nor interior, that give an added value to both apartment and public buildings, and pick up in turn on a whole tradition of intermediary spaces typical of Andalusian architecture.
Paperback / 144 pages / text English, Spanish / October 2009
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2G 50 Sou Fujimoto
Sou Fujimoto, Toyo Ito, Julian Worrall
 Sou Fujimoto belongs to a new generation of young Japanese architects whose work has aroused enormous interest at the international level. After winning numerous prizes in both Japan and the rest of the world, Fujimoto has become a major presence on the Japanese architectural scene.
Unlike his contemporaries, Sou Fujimoto has not been trained through working in the office of any of the architects of wide experience and international renown-instead, after graduating from Tokyo University in 1994 he preferred to think about and test his personal ideas on architecture in small projects that have enabled him to develop a tremendously personal and distinctive architectural approach. His projects are the result of a sophisticated conceptual elaboration that subverts established models, one mainly based on two major concerns: what it means to dwell in a space in the 21st century and how that space is materialised without following any formal a priori.
Accordingly, innovation in Fujimoto’s work does not proceed from a wish to generate disruptive forms, but from understanding the relationships between people and spaces in a different way, from taking complexity on board as an essential ingredient in his thinking and in his work, or from valuing intermediary space and nature.
Fujimoto manipulates these ideas, which reveal his preoccupation with the essence of dwelling, and transforms them into a new architecture of great spatial richness.
This number of 2G brings together the most emblematic buildings and projects by Sou Fujimoto, outstanding among which are the Children's Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilitation (Hokkaido), the Final Wooden House (Kumamoto), the Primitive Future House 2008 (Basel), the Apartment building (Tokyo), House Before House (Tochigi), House H (Tokyo), and the Library for Musashino Art University, (Tokyo). The two introductions to the monograph, written by Toyo Ito and Julian Worrall, provide us with the basic keys for understanding the richness of the Japanese architect’s projects.
Paperback / 144 pages / text English, Spanish / July 2009
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2G 48/49 Mies van der Rohe. Houses
Moisés Puente, Beatriz Colomina, Moisés Puente, Hans-Christian Schink
 A number of reasons have led us to the complete publication of Mies van der Rohe’s single family houses. To begin with, this publication responds to the lack of such a publication about Mies’s domestic work. Comprehensiveness has been paramount and it has been thought important to include all the built houses, regardless of the state of preservation of the very early ones; although their exteriors might seem more than acceptable, their interiors have undergone successive changes that make it almost impossible to find features of the original work. Two of the important houses have disappeared (the Wolf House in Gubin, destroyed in the World War II, and the House for a Childless Couple, dismounted after the exhibition), so that they are presented in the only way possible, using archive material.
Although Mies never got to build too many single family houses, he did receive quite a few commissions that were never built.
In order to understand the true dimension of the domestic facet of his work, it was necessary for all these designs to appear, and they have been collected together in the final section of nexus. Neither of these two parts of the publication, the built and the unbuilt houses, can be understood independently of the other.
As far as possible this publication tries to accompany the projects with the few comments, written or verbal, that Mies left behind about his houses after all, who better than the author to comment on his own buildings?
Last but not least, it is worth highlighting the work of research in numerous archives, which has enabled us to bring together, in a single volume, documents that in some instances were either unpublished or had been published in bad quality reproductions.
Current techniques for digitalising documents permit us to see a hitherto unusual amount of detail.
Paperback / 270 pages / text in English, Spanish / January 2009
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2G 47 Paulo David
Gonçalo Byrne, Emilio Tuñón
 The Portuguese architect Paulo David is a native of Madeira and works in the archipelago. This geographically peripheral position is an important factor when it comes to contextualising his work. Firstly, because it is the potential from which to cultivate increasingly elusive parameters in our contemporary, globalised society, as are the links with the location and its traditions that David implements in his projects. Secondly, because the natural beauty typical of the archipelago is the inspiration for all the architect's work. Paulo David utilises the craggy topography and the impressive vistas of sky and sea as essential building materials. His projects adapt to the context but without timidity, asserting themselves over the location and exploiting it to the utmost. As a result his buildings are respectful and bold in terms of the environment, and their interior spaces are inter-articulated in order to adapt to the topography, thus generating unexpected perspectives of the exterior and an intensely poetic atmosphere.
This issue of 2G, devoted to Paulo David, presents his best-known projects, such as the Casa das Mudas Art Centre, the Do Atlântico swimming pools and the Das Salinas promenade and restaurant, as well as many single-family houses and current projects like the redevelopment of Câmara de Lobos Bay, the São Vicente Caves or the Bom Sucesso residential development in Óbidos, Portugal.
Paperback / 144 pages / text in English, Spanish / January 2009
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2G 46 Tony Fretton Architects
Mark Cousins, Martin Steinmann
 Involved in huge commissions through out the world, the great British architecture offices international corporations, almost are the ones that have received most media attention over the last couple of decades. In such a context of gigantic companies it is worth pointing to the consistent, high-quality work of medium-sized offices that, with much painstaking effort, have managed to construct a great many excellent buildings. Outstanding among them is the output of Sergison Bates (2G n.34) and the present monograph devoted to Tony Fretton's studio.
Founded in 1982, Fretton's office has its starting point in the exploration of the social possibilities of architecture. Through a careful observation of reality (client, programme, city) Fretton designs buildings rooted in their surroundings, with an ability to put across an idea of community. His architecture does not have spectacular form as its aim, but rather the composure and human well-being that binds man to the essential aspects of life. The notion of architecture as social art is ultimately materialised in a sophisticated spatiality executed with enormous precision and material quality, thus reflecting the architect's interest in the visual arts.
This number of 2G presents a number of recent projects by Tony Fretton, not only in Great Britain (the Red House or the house for Anish Kapoor), but also in Holland (where in 2008 he will finish three important projects for multi-family housing), Poland (the British Embassy in Warsaw) and Denmark (where a housing project in the centre of Copenhagen is worth highlighting, along the Fuglsangmuseum in Lolland).
Paperback / 146 pages / text in English, Spanish / August 2008
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