La luce «catturata» da Campo Baeza a Zamora

The headquarters for the consejo consultivo di castilla y León is one of those works of contemporary architecture that, despite its strong character, manages to insert gently itself within a historical context. The works of campo baeza are always unitary microcosms rooted to both a geographic location and a historic context. They are transparent even when closed. carved monoliths, animated by light; they exceed (in the wake of Mies) the concept of the limit, circumscribed or fluid, between what they enclose and what they exclude. in Zamora campo baeza explicitly declares his reference (as he had done in 1995 with the project for the centro balear de innovacion tecnologica in Inca, Majorca) to the concept of the hortus conclusus. The idea of beauty that characterises this work his no need for special effects. it is st. augustine’s beauty of truth, and it transcends the very physicality of architecture using the most immaterial of materials: light. For Campo Baeza light is the only real material for constructing architecture that is not limited to simply satisfying a function. Light is the theme of architecture. Yet the light he seeks is not something vague, impalpable or fleeting. it is solid matter, and pure energy. this is whey in Zamora he accompanies the massiveness of stone with the transparency of glass. because he finds it «emotionally stimulating to rediscover ancient and at the same time simple mechanisms». he works more with ex- cavation than with surface. He favours subtraction over addition.