Javier Carvajal Unbuilt

Research published on:

CIDONCHA PÉREZ, A.J., IRABURU BONAFÉ, C. «La tercera casa de Somosaguas. Reconstrucción digital de la Casa Ojeda de Javier Carvajal», en Hormigón, Nº3, Catedra Blanca UPM, Madrid, 2023.

Facing the need to include digital dynamics in the updating of academic plans without giving up the haptic experience, the virtual reconstruction of unbuilt projects allows associating the physical exploration of an architectural archive with the attractiveness of digital representation.

In the following research this experience is developed through Javier Carvajal’s Ojeda House. A third house in Somosaguas located on a plot annexed to the celebrated Carvajal and García-Valdecasas houses. Designed almost 20 years later, the house would complete an architectural ensemble of exceptional plastic qualities that proved the expressive value of reinforced concrete and the talent and knowledge of the craft of its author.

The choice of the project was based precisely on this circumstance. Its proximity -physical and architectural- to the houses already built guaranteed us references to complete a project whose documentation available in the archive still leaves room for inquiry and proposal. The heterogeneous set of gazes that over the years has directed its attention to the Somosaguas houses would also serve as a framework for exploration to ultimately render the redrawing of the project and its three-dimensional modeling.

Following the success of the exercise, we rebuilt a second house. The Liñan house is, almost unconsciously, in the memory of many of the architects who study Carvajal’s figure since his model remains in the background in his last portraits.

Both research projects are the result of Carlos Iraburu’s (2022) and Álvaro Landete’s (2023) final thesis.