Arquitectura a Contrapelo

AaC was born in 2012 as a sort of blog where learnings and reflections on architecture could be exchanged. In 2016, it became also an architectural practice with the realization of refurbishing and brand new projects and competitions; as well as a design laboratory which develops art- and architecture-related products in such varied formats as memory games, card decks, posters… It is a project shared by Pedro Mena, Miguel Rabán & Juan Luis Romero, graduates of ETSA Seville, and conceived as a common space that allows for research and shaping of alternative possibilities for architecture. A contrapelo, ‘against the grain’, is an expression taken from philosopher Walter Benjamin’s oeuvre, where he advocated for an absolute distancing from a historical development at the service of the victor. The task is to brush history against the grain, discovering every work as contemporary, by stripping it off every empathy for the concept of progress. This way of re-reading, re-interpreting and re-drawing the world is the one we want to portray in our practice.