Eduardo
Chillida is considered one of the greatest sculptors of
the 20th. Century. His works are spread all over the world,
but in an angle of Spain, in the baschi villages near San
Sebastian, his native town, there is a museum dedicated
to him that holds many of his creations, in an open air
exhibition, situated on his property that has crowned one
of the artist’s wishes.
My visit as an architect is oriented in taking conscious
of the park museum and analyzes, from a panoramic point
of view, the integration of sculptures, materialized as
intended by the personality of Chillida, with the environment.
It isn’t in my intention to express any judgement
regarding the works of the artist.
First
I would like to illustrate the man’s personality,
and I believe these sentences can summarize the concept
of his life.
‘I’m one of those that believe, for me very
important, that human beings always belong to a place .Ideally
we should be and have roots in one place but, contemporarily,
I think our arms should embrace the entire world and whichever
culture is perfect for whoever is able to adapt. In my village
I feel at ease, like a tree that has adjusted to its territory.
I try to create an opera of man, mine, because I am me,
this work of art will have particular shades, a black light,
though it’s also ours.’
In the last years of his life, he had a big desire to construct
what would have been the greatest opera left to humanity.
He wanted to create, inside a mountain, on the island of
Fuerteventura, a vast space where all men from all nations,
races and faith, would have been equal in front of the immensity
of space. The artist that had modelled clay, iron, alabaster,
cement, paper and many stones wanted lastly to model ‘space’
where humanity could live in equality, a desire that contemporarily
is a total immersion in the expressiveness of man and the
political vision of existence.
A desire that he castaway among the controversy frights
and uncertainty of a society that often demonstrates itself
as not being adaptable to big ideas. Chillida symbolically
wanted to give his contribution to the spiritual union of
the races. Every race with its own culture and its own character
but, also with the desire to accept the differences of others.
Another dream, this one created, was to produce a space
where his work could be exhibited permanently.
In
1984 Eduardo Chillida and his wife Pilar Belzunce,
purchased the farm of Zabalaya, that dates back to
1543, 10 kilometres from San Sebastian (Spain). The
museum Chillida Leku was born, a park where today
there are beeches, oaks, magnolias and that holds
about 40 sculptures, positioned in such a way that
they may be touched and lived as in a public place.
Together with the architect Joaquin Montero, the artist
restored the ruined buildings of the agricultural
firm to create a place where he could keep his operas
during the oxidization of the material: today, this
building contains his smaller works of art and its
fascinating environment made of old walls, beautiful
linear structures with a united vision of space.
From
a museum point of view, the park displays his operas in
a worn out way but, according to me, it is unable to gather
the force as a place of fusion between nature and art. I
perceive the sculptures, spread on the lawn as isolated
objects. I find that the locality is unable to be as intense
as the exposed operas. The sense of loosing the infinite
materializes the symbolic significance that his operas in
other settings are able to maintain. A sculpture that looks
at the ocean becomes so much part of the landscape that
the human eye is unable to delimit it. It’s the man’s
and the artist’s vision that finds its maximum expression.
Instead, this place should represent metaphorically Chillida’s
universe and therefore his desire to converse with the immensity
of space, remains delimited by the fencing material that
contrasts the poetic self of the author and the plantations
are perceived as casual presences.
The
principal elements of the museum are the sculptures that
the artist wanted as unique protagonist; chosen comprehensively
but, I believe, that the open air setting should have mirrored
more the poetic expression of the artist. As he himself
affirms, today man belongs to a place and his vision of
the world depends on his roots. From this park, I visitor
am unable to perceive the desire of the artist to ‘open-up’
to the world. However, it’s an interesting example
of an open-air museum and above all it’s the most
exhausting way to encounter the poetic richness and the
expressive combination of one of the greatest sculptures
of the 20th. Century.
