A GREAT ARCHITECT OF THE EARTH, àLBERT íMAZ FERRíZ.

Our lives are made of hard work, moments of happiness, enthusiasm, but also adversity and imponderables. Sometimes an unforgettable encounter helps us recover, to believe in ourselves again. This was the case with who will remain a friend forever: the Catalan architect àlbert ímaz Ferríz; “Alberto” as we called him. The pleasant timbre of his voice, his optimistic laughter and his playful complicity gave us hope to set off once more to the ends of the earth, for again building no matter what.

From Latin America to China, I knew I could count on his knowledge. Alberto was very professional. He was an invaluable resource for everything you could possibly need when designing, building and managing a project. We shared what this beautiful Latin American expression expresses so well: "we had World in us", moreover we had in common this old world that permeated our cultures and this New World that would mark our lives.

From Egypt to Mexico

??“Domes, vaults, earthen arches print the blue of the Mexican sky. Each curve has its own story, secretly linked to that of a man: the architect Alberto Imaz Ferriz. Having gone through his work, I now today what Alberto Imaz wanted: to offer great “Space” to the inhabitants… To offer the popular habitat a new dignity, another reality!

To want to build better for the people! we share together this dangerously realistic utopia. How many difficulties must be overcome? How much obvious things must be demonstrated? while the dominant mediocrity is displayed for all to see, for the benefit of those who only seek to enrich themselves at the expense of the population.

Almost half a century ago, the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, whose influence can be seen in Alberto Imaz, had already stated:

?“When an architect feels a sense of mission, he will inevitably experience a great deal of resistance to his purpose. If he wants to build for the people, he must understand from the outset that he has a bitter struggle ahead of him.”

(Alain Hays, "Construir con tierra en Mexico", February 1994.) [1]

From Earthen Material to Vaults and Domes by àlbert ímaz

The 70s and 80s had rehabilitated a material as old as it was ignored: earth. Our studies, our experiments and our book Construire en terre (Building with earth) [2] would pave the way for official research that would mobilize major French institutions, then others in Europe. The exhibition Des architectures de terre (Earthen architectures)[3], at the Center Georges Pompidou in the heart of Paris, which followed two years later the publication of our book, fascinated many architects.

And then, there was this Egyptian earthen construction project in the village of Gourna, near Luxor in 1945, the subject of a book that became, in the early 1970s, an essential reference: Building with the People by Hassan Fathy.[4] In it, the author advocated the use of local materials, in this case adobe bricks [5], and the recourse to ancestral construction technologies of construction without formwork for vaults and domes. Hassan Fathy wanted to reinvent an architecture adapted from local resources but also to give dignity to the homes of modest inhabitants.

It was in this effervescent context of so-called "alternative" or "appropriate" technologies —at the time, there was little talk of ecology and even less of green building— that the architect àlbert ímaz developed his own innovative research in Mexico and will apply it to his large-scale, high quality architectural projects. The task was not easy, especially in a country located in an earthquake zone.

I had the great privilege of traveling through his work from one end of Mexican territory to the other. The result is a work, now precious, that recounts the constructive systems and architectures that àlbert ímaz designed with art. It takes us from Oaxaca (in the south) to Huatabampo (in the north), passing through Chalco, Ciudad Hidalgo and Culiacán, to meet Alberto's works and their occupants. We visit his production units of local materials and discover his innovative construction systems and the plans of his deserving projects where the search for bioclimatic comfort is always combined with architectural quality. On display are a housing complex in Oaxaca (state of the same name), a rural construction project in Huatabampo (state of Sonora), a popular self-build housing project in Chalco (state of Mexico City), a housing complex in Ciudad Hidalgo (state of Michoacan), and a large building complex in Culiacán, (state of Sinaloa).

FIRST MEXICAN NATIONAL AWARD

àlbert ímaz Ferríz, was finally rewarded for his efforts and sacrifices. He received the First Prize in the First National Competition of Technologies for Housing of Social Interest, which was organized in 1993 by the Secretariat of Social Development (SEDESOL) of the United Mexican States.

GEOdomus International?: New Century – ??Renaissance??.

At the turn of the century, on June 21 of the year 2000, we were going to create, in Barcelona, the Organization for Geo-Architecture and Human Habitat "GEODomus International"[6]. We had to rethink more than two decades of research and actions around the world.

The concept of geo-architecture [7] that I had introduced a few years earlier was taking shape. It was also going to take on new dimensions that still shine at the time of ecological emergencies and the green building that we talk about so much. Real builders, and defenders of the environment, were going to join our approach, concerned with saving natural resources and non-renewable energies, but also wishing to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants while respecting and promoting the diversity of innumerable built cultural heritages and their natural environments, each time more threatened and which we absolutely must protect.

We had there an immense World Heritage not only of remarkable buildings to preserve, but also of intangible cultural heritage, made of knowledge and practices, that we wanted to defend together and make known through our actions and our projects of architecture.

Opposed to this standardization of a globalized world that seemed inescapable, we defended and continue to defend, while there is still time, all these magnificent "situated" heritages, with a thousand genius loci that are unutterable but so perceptible. Well beyond limiting ourselves to the sole use of the earth material, this is also the invaluable built cultural heritage that we wanted to highlight and that we call today geo-architecture.

Eternal Free Thinker

Albert ímaz called himself a free thinker and he was. One could sense in him a permanent thirst for knowledge and progress, which the countless books of his library could hardly quench. àlbert ímaz communicated to you this impulse of professional and human fraternity: a value that he elevated to the rank of the one, for him supreme and which had only one name: Freedom!

Street signs designed by the author. Construction of an entire urban district after an earthquake. Program "Villa Francia?", Moquegua. Embassy of France, Peru [8]

Travels: Worlds

The first names of the two daughters of àlbert ímaz Ferríz and Lilia Cárdenas, his beloved wife, are a reflection of his whole life:

• Al.ly Quetzal takes us to the Aztec and Mayan lands of the New World.
• Esmeralda brings us back to our old world and to the genius, to the oceanic and universal vision, of a resolutely republican Victor Hugo, whom I am trying so hard to revive while restoring "Notre-Dame de Paris ? [9]

The day when we will see again in the sky of Paris, its sublime spire that had raised, in the XIXth century, the “Compagnons” Carpenters of the Duty of Freedom, I will have in secret a thought for you my dear Alberto...

But, now tell us about your last trip:

???Dear friends and brothers, I am preparing for my journey, perhaps the longest… I will take only the essentials with me… I do not want to burden myself. So I have chosen what is most valuable and which, throughout my life, has been everything to me: my family, my friends, architecture..., what, as a human being and as an Architect, I have loved and built so much over the years.

When I look at these well-founded buildings, it makes me proud and I feel happy. I did a good job where I put passion, love, dedication and great fraternity.

As scientist, freemason and agnostic Carl Sagan said, “We are stardust.” As the Lomonosov-Lavoisier law proves, “Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it is only transformed”.

I will leave the place where I was born, Barcelona. Completing my cycle. Although I leave a part of myself in many places, especially in my beloved Mexico. This too I will take away.?

One day will come, we too will pack our bags.

Wait for us there! … with a good “cava”, the one of friendship an esteem, which we have shared so many times…

Alain HAYS,

April 23, 2022. ?Journey of Alberto, a Great Architect of the Earth...

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[1] HAYS Alain (1994) Construir con tierra en México – Peritaje de la aplicación del sistema constructivo CIDECOT con módulos de tierra comprimida y estabilizada en todas las obras realizadas en la República Mexicana, 1967 – 1994. CRATerre América Latina (Geo-architectural work of the architect àlbert ímaz Ferríz, in Mexico.)

[2] Construire en terre (1979), CRATerre, P. Doat, A. Hays, H. Houben, S. Matuk, F. Vitoux, edit. Alternatives, nov. 1979, réédition en 1983 et 1985, 288 p. ill., tab. ,graf., bibl. Founding book of the CRATerre association, and initiator of official French research on earthen construction - see also on this subject the communication: De la pierre à la terre – mémoire de Chapeau-Cornu, ?Alain Hays (2019).

[3] Des architectures de terre ou l’avenir d’une tradition millénaire, (1981) Centre Georges Pompidou. Centre de Création Industrielle. Paris, Exhibition from October 28, 1981 to February 1, 1982

[4] FATHY Hassan (1969) Gourna, a Tale of two villages, published in 1969 in English in Cairo and the United States under the title Architecture for the Poor?, translated into many languages, including French in 1970 under the title of Construire avec le peuple.

[5] Adobe : blocks of raw earth generally mixed with fibers (straw or other), molded in a plastic state or liquid state, and dried in the sun.

[6] GEOdomus International?(Organisation for Geo-architecture and Human Habitat) : organization founded in Barcelona, in the year 2000, by Alain Hays (France), àlbert ímaz (Spain-Catalonia), Silvia Matuk (Peru) and Lilia Cardenas (Mexico). GEOdomus associated recognized professionals and experts — from Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Brazil, Spain, Portugal-Morocco, Germany, France and China — all of them with great experience in the field of geo-architecture (especially in earth construction and its mixed techniques), ecological habitat, and built cultural heritage.

[7] Géo-architecture?: term that encompasses in particular load-bearing earth construction technologies, transitional semi-load-bearing earth construction technologies and so-called "mixed" structures, generally of plant origin (wood, bamboo, etc.) in combination with the use of earth material. Today, the term geo-architecture takes on a much broader meaning of “situated” architectures that meet “eco-cultural” and bioclimatic design criteria.

[8] ??Villa Francia?? program of post-earthquake reconstruction of an entire urban neighborhood in Moquegua, Peru. General coordinator: Alain Hays. French Embassy in Peru. (2002)

[9] Alain HAYS (2022) Notre-Dame de la Paix - Notre Dame of the Peace, Notre Dame of Humanity – NDH Global Network.

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To quote this document:

HAYS Alain, (2022), A Great Architect of the Earth, àlbert ímaz Ferríz, Communication. (April 23, 2022. ?Alberto’s journey...).

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