El Croquis Night. Excursus into Nocturnal Obliteration in Architectural Media

El Croquis Night. Excursus into Nocturnal Obliteration in Architectural Media [ x ]

Full essay at: Interiority. Vol 4 No. 2 (2021): 181-190.
French version at: Plan Libre No. 179 Quant vient la nuit (2021): 12-14.

El Croquis is one of the most prestigious architectural magazines in the world. Founded in 1982 by Richard Levene and Fernando Marquez, it publishes five monographs every year. The volumes dedicated to established Pritzker Prize names like OMA Rem Koolhaas, SANAA Sejima & Nishizawa, Herzog & de Meuron, Alvaro Siza or Rafael Moneo, are considered their respective oeuvre complète.

The magazine almost never publishes nocturnal photographs of buildings. The same goes for other major architecture magazines. In February 2020, HEAD – Genève invited Richard Levene to create a “night edition” of El Croquis. The workshop focused on the idea that night is a forgotten paradigm in the construction of modern and contemporary architectural discourse.

Students of HEAD – Genève’s various departments developed an El Croquis Night edition based on the magazine’s photographic and editorial language. Students spent two weeks photographing prominent contemporary buildings in Geneva, from blue hour to sunset under Levene’s supervision, a material that they later laid out and edited in a virtual edition of the journal.

El Croquis Night is part of the research project: www.scenesdenuit.ch

BOOKS /// Javier F. Contreras. Manifesto of Interiors: Thinking in the Expanded Media [Geneva: HEAD – Publishing, 2021] /// Javier F. Contreras. The Miralles Projection: Thinking and Representation in the Architecture of Enric Miralles. [New York: Applied Research + Design Publishing, 2020] /// Javier F. Contreras, Youri Kravtchenko, Arjen Oosterman, and Lilet Breddels, eds. Herbarium of Interiors. HEAD – Genève & India Mahdavi. [Amsterdam: Archis-Volume, 2020] /// Javier F. Contreras. Fragmentos de Planta y Espacio. Sistema Diédrico en Enric Miralles [Madrid: Ediciones Asimétricas, 2018] /// INTERVIEWS /// “Depuis Rue Las Cases. A Conversation with India Mahdavi.” Interview by Javier F. Contreras. In India Mahdavi, edited by Chronicle Chroma [Los Angeles: Chronicle Books, 2021] /// Javier F. Contreras, and Graeme Brooker. “The Future is Interior and Interiorised.” Interview by Marco Costantini, and Claire Favre Maxwell. RADDAR no. 2 (2020), 192-213. /// Irma Boom. “Within Pages, Beyond Books.” Interview by Javier F. Contreras, and Lilet Breddels. In Herbarium of Interiors, edited by J. F. Contreras, Y. Kravtchenko, A. Oosterman, L. Breddels [Amsterdam: Archis-Volume, 2020], 42-47. /// Javier F. Contreras. “Architecture d’intérieur. Espace et Communication.” Interview by Nic Ulmi. In IN MY HEAD, edited by Julie E. Julliard [Geneva: HEAD – Genève, 2020], 240-243. /// Jean-Pierre Greff, and Javier F. Contreras. “Dialogue sur l’enseignement de l’architecture d’intérieur.” Interview by Roberto Zancan. In L’architecture par l’intérieur, edited by Roberto Zancan [Geneva: MetisPresses, 2018], 185-205. /// ESSAYS /// Javier F. Contreras. “El Croquis Night: Excursus into Nocturnal Obliteration in Architectural Media.” Interiority. Vol 4 No. 2 (2021): 181-190. /// Javier F. Contreras. “Tactile and Reflective Conditions in the Architecture of Marie-José Van Hee.” In Marie-José Van Hee Architecten: More Home, More Garden, edited by Hilde Peleman, and Katrien Vandermarliere [Ghent: Copyright Slow Publishing, 2019], 217-229. /// Javier F. Contreras. “Différences de Perception: Le Chablais Lémanique.” In Prises de vue. Un paradigme pour l’observation du paysage, edited by Michael Jakob [Geneva: Métis Presses, 2019], 129-146. /// Javier F. Contreras. “Tactile and Reflective Conditions: Marie-José Van Hee’s House Declercq.” BITACORA Arquitectura no. 39 (2018): 134-139. /// Javier F. Contreras. “Dibujo y Repetición: Presencia Manual de Enric Miralles en la Planta del Ayuntamiento de Utrecht.” RA Revista de Arquitectura no. 19 (2017): 97-104. /// Javier F. Contreras, and José María Sánchez García. “Concentration as Program, Emptiness as Flexibility: an Idea of Space.” In Passion for the Built Environment (Perspectives in Metropolitan Research no. 2), edited by Gesa Ziemer [Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2016], 98-106. /// Javier F. Contreras. “La Tectónica de lo Aéreo: Enric Miralles y la Vicisitud de lo Climático.” ZARCH: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in Architecture and Urbanism no. 4 (2015): 22-35. /// Javier F. Contreras. “Plan Libre vs. Plan Miralles.” In Massilia 2011. Annuaire d’études Corbuséennes, edited by Josep Quetglas [Paris-Marseille: Fondation Le Corbusier, Editions Imbernon, 2011], 82-91. /// Javier F. Contreras. “Océanos de Arena, Ciudades del Petróleo.” Revista Arquitectura no. 361 (Autumn 2010): 88-91. /// Javier F. Contreras. “El Organicismo Expandido.” CIRCO no. 153. Madrid: M.R.T. Coop, 2009. /// Javier F. Contreras, Gabriel N. Duarte, and Roberto Gª Caballero. “It’s Not Just Grass! Subverting Legal Planning and the Reinvention of the Dutch Process-Landscape Agenda 2000 & the C2751.” In 306090 vol.8, Autonomous Urbanism, edited by Alex Duval, and Kjersti Monson [New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2005], 21-30.

Javier Fernández Contreras (Granada, 1982) is an architect, critic and the dean of the Department of Interior Architecture at HEAD – Genève. His work explores the relationship between architecture, representation and media, with a specific focus on the role of interiors in the construction of contemporaneity. Contreras studied architecture at TU Delft and ETSA Madrid, where he graduated with a Master’s degree in 2006, and completed a PhD in architectural theory in 2013, summa cum laude. In 2015 he was a finalist in the 10^th arquia/tesis competition with his PhD thesis The Miralles Projection: Thinking and Representation in the Architecture of Enric Miralles. He has taught architectural design at different institutions, including ETSAM in Spain, XJTLU in China and ETH Zurich in Switzerland. Contreras is the author of the books Fragmentos de Planta y Espacio (Ediciones Asimétricas, 2018), The Miralles Projection (Applied Research + Design Publishing, 2020), Manifest of Interiors: Thinking in the Expanded Media (HEAD – Publishing, 2021), and co-editor of Herbarium of Interiors (Archis-Volume, 2020), a special collaboration between HEAD – Genève, India Mahdavi, and Volume magazine. His critical essays have been published in various books and specialised journals, including Massilia Annuaire des Études Corbuséennes, Marie-José Van Hee Architecten, Perspectives in Metropolitan Research, 306090, CIRCO, Drawing Matter, Bitácora, RA Revista de Arquitectura.

This website is an index of selected writings.

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