SelgasCano is a Spanish architectural office based in Madrid and founded in 1998 by José Selgas and Lucía Cano. The atelier focuses on the use of polychromy, creative exploration of new materials and the relationship between architecture and its surrounding landscape.
Their work includes three auditoriums and congress centers in Spain (Auditorio de Badajoz, Auditorio El Batel Cartagena and Auditorio de Plasencia); several office buildings such as Second Home London, Second Home Lisboa and Second Home Los Angeles, a school in Kibera, Nairobi, a vaccination center in Turkana, Kenya, and several public pavilions including the 15th annual Serpentine Pavilion 2015 in London, which was re-installed at La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles in 2019.
Selgascano´s office in the woods in Madrid is the most visited project in the specialized architecture website Archdaily,
Selgascano's work has been exhibited in MoMA, New York City; Bruges Trienal; Guggenheim New York; GA gallery in Tokyo; the MOT(Contemporary Art Museum of Tokyo; the Design Museum of London; the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin; the Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney; the MIT in Boston; the Venice Biennale in Venice; and the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen. Selgascano was awarded with the Kunstpreis by the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 2013, as well as the Architects of the Year prize by the German Design Council in Munich.
Background
José Selgas was born in Madrid in 1965. He graduated from ETSA Madrid in 1992 and has worked with Francesco Venecia in Naples from 1994 to 1995. He won the Rome Prize in the Spain Academy of Fine Arts in Rome 1997 – 1998.
Lucía Cano Pintos was born in Madrid in 1965. She graduated from ETSA Madrid in 1992 and has worked with Julio Cano Lasso, her father, from 1997 until 2001.
Architectural practice
SelgasCano describes their architectural practice in the following way:“The buildings that interest us are precisely the ones that establish a certain relationship with nature, not the ones that try to imitate or camouflage themselves in nature, but the ones that are in direct opposition or contradiction to it. Actually, instead of seeking a balance between nature and artifice, we think nature should prevail over artifice. In all our projects, we strive to give nature a greater presence than it had before our intervention. Otherwise, we would consider the project to be a failure. Again, we are less and less interested in architecture as a physical fact, and more interested in architecture as a sensitivity, as respect for what exists.”In general, the studio works with as few people as possible in order to be able to fully control the quantity and the quality of the projects. SelgasCano works on various scales and typologies: Their portfolio includes installations, pavilions, small shops, single-family houses, office buildings, congress centers and auditoriums and large-scale park proposals.
One of the common denominators of their work is the way in which they deal with the plot: As theorist and critic Thomas Daniel states, “most of their buildings are not conventionally places on the ground, but appear to be floating in the air above the ground surface, like Mérida Factory, for example, or gently pressed into the earth below the ground surface, like EL ‘B’, in Cartagena”.
Another reoccurring theme is the use of color, their constant work with polychromy. As Christopher Turner, London Design Biennale director, states: “There is nothing superficial about SelgasCano’s use of colour – the Spanish duo’s pop-art playfulness has been integral to projects from east London to northern Kenya.”
A key factor in their work is also the use of unusual, industrial-grade materials, like ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), polymethyl methacrylate (acrylic) and polycarbonate. The use of plastic in many buildings allows for lightweight, sometimes even translucent, façades.
José Selgas describes the work of the office in the following way:“We like to be open to every possibility in every project. We come with open eyes and with the possibility to go in any direction. We are architects, not artists. We always try to bring something to the table that is beyond our personal thoughts. All of our projects incorporate different inputs that come from different directions, but typically, they’re always related to nature, climate, society, history, scale, and—more than anything—economy.“