January, 22, 2008

When the music starts

To Teresa L. and Joaquin M.

We knew that the orchestra was rehearsing, and maybe that is why we went down to the foyer so quietly.

When we opened the glass doors from the foyer, through which one could see the stage, the music suddenly appeared before us. It was like a physical presence. The stage was full of young musicians with many instruments. They were casually dressed and added colourful notes to the dark density of the red, black and white of the room, almost unseen.

Teresa stepped back with eyes moist from an emotion so intense. She showed me her happiness, watching the activity of the Auditorium of La Vila Joiosa with Joaquin and myself at this moment in which the music was being created. The music was searching to stop being a phenomenon and to become a form.

At this moment, I understood that my work was finished, that the auditorium already had its own life: I understood there was such a personal emotion, so architectural, felt as we saw the most relevant features of the project. It was like the first time that we drew the public space that formed the wing; or the shadow that it cast over the room; or when somebody photographed for the first time the ceiling of the room as if it was a deck; or when they told us that it had been chosen for the exhibition at MOMA; or when we covered it all with a soil-coloured plastic, ….. They were now the feelings of others, the emotion of seeing how the others responded to all that, and all the human reactions that we had imagine became real, became true, and matched with the nature of the building.

And for a few minutes, even I forgot myself and everything around me, and for a moment I did not know where I was. For a couple of minutes, I managed to forget everything that was the result of our work, and during that time I experienced the same emotions as the other people that were using the auditorium: with the same emotion and pride that Teresa and the people from La Vila enjoyed, or with the same emotion as the musicians, concentrated in the repetition of music in order to find in that architectural space the heart of a note.

View photogrphies at
http://pub.torresnadal.com/la_vila/when_the_music_starts.html

José María Torres Nadal
Alicante, January 2008

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