EVERY THIRTY YEARS THE MURMUR OF STONES (published in La Rioja on 24 October 1998 and included in the altarpiece of Ambasaguas, COAR, Logroño 2000) logroñeses
All we are happy to again have the Mall with us, in our travels through it or to sit for a while in their seats to enjoy this magnificent space that connects the old city with the first expansion outside its walls. Many are also happy because RAM has been a new suit, and you feel or not feel well, is new, and that's always a joy. Others praise Fernandine streetlights because they know they are OK, and avoid concerns to understand or to try new designs. Many also like to be excessively bright, because it seems that the center of the city is always celebrating. Inside of the pessimism with which I welcomed the work in that article entitled "A corazón abierto" (La Rioja October 31, 1996) and said that although many things as I did not like the project, the Mall would survive, and there it is.
There is reason for joy for many, of course, but I have heard in the street or read in this newspaper comments doubt, uncertainty and distress of people whose sensitivity extends beyond the joy of the new suit of complacency with the known or the euphoria of the waste. These people look at the floor and start saying they do not like, or which are rare, and I see that you are as thoughtful wondering why: because in fact the tiles are new, and are better and have granite cost much money .... Their concerns are similar to those who hear a foreign language and do not understand, but notice the tone of the speaker something strange and unfriendly.
Without being an expert, I understand some of the language of the stones, so I walked through the Mall to hear their whispers and translate those people with a certain sensitivity to what the stones say. Because the stones say things, you know, the stones are not silent: who talk constantly about the cut and placed. The office of architect and the principal of the works is the more daring there because when things get bad the stones speak ill of one for years and years. Even when you have been loving them, you also have to say, when they have been able to understand and place, when it has respected his being, even the stones are grateful for centuries, even millennia.
Well, the stones of the Ram say many, many things, some that most do not understand my lack of knowledge of their language and others that do. The most clear that I have heard, and that I can translate to logroñeses is that they are very angry that they have been treated like tiles or floor tiles of a vulgar, and are not willing to bear. That cry and break, which will rise by one side or another to make us stumble with them or injured children and also falling, we will offer their most ugly and angry face while living.
I at first did not want to believe what I heard he was very strong and because I want much to Ram, but I fear that they are absolutely right. The stones have been placed Stonetalon like tiles one roof and not as stones that are, so no wonder a lot to be bitter war to our walks and our breaks in this magnificent place.
is because the stone is a noble material, heavy and hard as it requires a deal of respect and honor for each of the pieces have to work. You have to understand why the stone does not like it cut into standardized parts of the same size, it is certain that this would seem to tile or terrazzo. And much less than the truck in hundreds of pieces of information to adapt to the whimsical drawings of a compass on paper. The stone has its pride, well he is!, And threatens to show it. Because the stone, then many centuries of architecture, had already used the chisel and the mason Bujard and the court does not support a simple bricklayer indiscriminately with these machines Rotaflex-cutting discs that emit a horrible screech and raise a suffocating cloud of dust-like to a common stoneware, giving ways unthinkable to her.
also do not like the stone being so close to each other and without a little bevel and board through a sensible, because if your placement is not perfect, or as soon as you move a little, will highlight one over the other showing a biting edge. He does not like setting, "they also say," geometric planes with gradient linear edge encounters for steps de peatones y cambios de pendientes tan exagerados, porque la piedra es material orgánico que quiere una expresión más suave y alabeada. Está ofendida ante tantos cortes y adaptaciones a las numerosísimas tapas de registro que alteran sus formas y dibujos, y que dejan unas juntas chapuceras. No está contenta tampoco con la cara lisa que le han dado, que ni muestra las posibilidades del brillante pulido, ni las rugosidades propias de su naturaleza. ¿Y qué es eso de tener que andar a juego con unos adoquines rojos prefabricados ¡y encima artificiales!?
Alguien se ha equivocado con el granito de El Espolón, alguien que ha pensado que la piedra no tiene alma, ni tradición , ni estilo, ¡ni orgullo!, y que think over the stone is the technique that he manages, the technique of the large concrete sub-base on which tiles and paste technique Rotaflex to fit your taste. Well, well, complaining that the stone, and that's what he mumbles, and that is probably what some logroñeses fine ear sensitive and have begun to notice.
And even there, for now, what I could hear the noble granite, because in the view of most obvious blunders, like shapes and surface designs that are placed in parts - for example in the part of Vara de Rey -, following guidelines or unrelated to any rational axis, or the lack of a sense of geometry of most of meetings between paving stone, he thinks the stone no longer have to say it because it is so clear that you have to do even the most recalcitrant complacent about the premiere, the formal conformity and waste. Or should we take the view to miss it too fat, bloated and very sensitive to not caring.
