ELISA VALERO, ARCHITECT, IS KNOWN FOR HER MINIMALIST AND SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO THE PROFESSION. BORN IN CIUDAD REAL, SPAIN, SHE STUDYED AND DEVELOPED AN ESSENTIAL ARCHITECTURE, RESPECT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND RESOURCES. VALERO IS PARTICULARLY KNOWN FOR ITS USE OF ECONOMIC AND SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS, SUCH AS CEMENT, AND FOR ITS ABILITY TO CREATE BRIGHT AND FUNCTIONAL SPACES, EVEN IN PROJECTS WITH LIMITED BUDGET. IN HIS WORKS HE PAYS A LOT OF ATTENTION TO ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND THE QUALITY OF THE LIVING SPACES, WHERE HE COMBINES FORMAL SIMPLICITY WITH FUNCTIONALITY AND AESTHETICS
On October 9, 2024 atOrder of Architects of the Province of Barletta Andria TraniI listened with great attention to the Lectio Magistralis of Elisha Valeroarchitect, who chose to design and build “an architecture that is silent, serene and without drawing attention to itself”.
He started his career in Mexico with the restoration of the work of Felix Candela, “The sources” and with his first book at the Academia de España in Rome. Since 1997, his workplace has been in a small office opposite the Alhambra in Granada, Spain.
Interested in living space, landscape, sustainabilitytowards precision and economy of expressive means, understands originality as the rediscovery of the true meaning of architecture rooted in the land and in its time.
Valero considers the work of an architect as a service par excellence, intended to make the lives of people and communities pleasant; a noble calling that strives to make the world more beautiful and human, to make society more just.
Towards sustainable architecture
His speech, “From now on; towards sustainable architecture” (From now on; towards sustainable architecture), is open to sustainable architecture based on natural lightabout the reuse of buildings, about new building materials for the future.
The conditions arose from the awareness of the scarcity of natural resources and the scarcity of economic resources in the communities.
They worry about the change of the era and how we will hand over our small planet to the future. Because sustainable architecture does not mean installing wind turbines and solar panels.
Sustainability must coincide with the beauty of places and architecture; the fully sustainable and loving environment is an environment that lives all day with natural light and with the minimal contribution of artificial light.
In the 20th century, people thought technology could solve many things, everything. Today we are aware that this is not the case. And we know that many technologies are dangerous and produce enormous amounts of hazardous waste.
We are building a small and vulnerable planet
After globalization, we are today aware that we are building a small and vulnerable planet and that our work is responsible for the entire world.
The environmental crisis has made us realize that this is not the future. And this is not the world we imagined. Creating an artificial nature, parallel to the natural environment, is not right.
The task of architects today is to revolutionize through projects and in the places where they operate.
The architecture “ethics” by Elisa Valero
It is necessary to create, free of charge, a simpler architecture, which lives only on natural light, also because it is the best that exists – Valero explained –. There is no aesthetics without it ethics and we must create architecture for a more ethical city that corresponds to a high-quality aesthetic city. The future of cities depends on architecture, because it is the only art that is always present in the lives of men and women on earth.
The future of cities depends on architecture
Today’s cities are full of conventional architecture, conventionally conceived and built with conventional materials. But we can say that the future lies in search architecture; working on new and old natural materials, on their composition, putting together volumes and opening holes in them, to promote natural light and viewpoints on the urban space.
Nowadays, if you design seriously and with passion, every idea is a work in itself, unique and unique. Therefore, an unconventional architecture is generated, which creates comfortable environments, with natural temperatures and adapted to the seasons and climates, without the use of technologies.
It is not bad architecture, it is an ethical architecture, possible through the study of old and new building materials, which intervenes in the contemporary landscape without changing the natural state of urban areas, and designs with the lowest possible economy where ethics and aesthetics come together.
“Architecture is not a place for nostalgics, it is a job for rebels”
(Elisa Valero)
© Domenico Tangaro Art
