Battles and Love's Labour's Lost. Jorge Juan 55 as a critical commodity

Abstract:

This  article  analyses  the  dual  nature  of  the  disciplinary  narrative  around  architectural  design.  While  the necessary technical control to which architecture owes its status as a regulated profession in Spain demands a clear service component, the secular tradition of Spanish architecture has always been closer to the artistic interpretation of the project. It is in this context that the contemporary view of intellectual work, of artistic work and its transformation into a commodity and, in short of whether it can be isolated from the capitalist exchange market to become a critical, uncomfortable and contentious object can be introduced to the debate. The unique characteristics of the work of Francisco Alonso de Santos in the premises at no. 55 Calle Jorge Juan in Madrid, make it the principal case study for this research in which, through access to previously unpublished photographic and project documentation, we analyse the duality between architect and artist and the relationship, constantly at the core of the disciplinary debate, between architects, their clients and the works in which they encounter one another, whether as battlefields or as love’s labour’s lost.

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