In these pages, the author opens avenues for discussion by analyzing established milestones and contextualizing new values in contemporary architecture: the successes and contradictions of Mies van der Rohe and Alejandro de la Sota, the tragic gravity of Gordon Matta-Clark, or the revolutionary ambition of Konstantín Mélnikov. The masquerade Smiljan Radić has constructed in Vilches, an unopened shoe store by Paco Alonso, the construction of an oeuvre by Arquitectura-G, and Valerio Olgiati’s Palladian house share space with Aldo Rossi’s diatribes or Reyner Banham’s analysis of the city of Los Angeles. A panoramic view of projects and figures shapes this "anti-chatter" that seeks to invite a public exercise in dialogue.
The career of Moisés Puente (León, 1969) is characterized by a constant reflection on architecture. After training as an architect in A Coruña, Rome, and Barcelona, he has been an architecture editor at Editorial Gustavo Gili since 1999. He currently also directs the magazine 2G and a collection of essays for the German publisher Walther König. He has published anthologies of texts—by, among others, Alejandro de la Sota, Josep Llinàs, Olafur Eliasson, Aldo Rossi, Philip Ursprung, Smiljan Radić, Andrés Jaque, and Kersten Geers—, books of conversations—with Mies van der Rohe, Jørn Utzon, and Gordon Matta-Clark—, and monographs on the work of both Mies and De la Sota. He curated the exhibition Miguel Fisac and Alejandro de la Sota: Parallel Gazes (Museo ICO, 2016, with Carlos Asensio-Wandosell) and the ephemeral interventions Castles and Still Lifes (2015, with David Bestué and Miquel Mariné), in which artists worked closely with architects. His publications have received various awards, and in 2010 he was granted the FAD Award for Thought and Criticism for "his extensive, multifaceted, and rigorous personal work as an editor." In 2016, he founded his own publishing imprint, Puente Editores, focused on essays about art and architecture.
