which in his case was associated with a confident defence of attitudes which were often controversial, and soon helped to set him apart as a "master". Although Coderch originally wanted to be a naval engineer, his parents' persuasion convinced him that he should take architecture studies, which he began in 1931 and completed in 1940, after the interruption of the Spanish Civil War. It was at the school of architecture that he met Manuel Valls Vergés, with whom he joined forces in 1942, when the two young architects decided to set up a practice together. From this moment on, the theme of the individual dwelling and the recovery of the most inherent elements of habitation became the greatest concern of Coderch, who was particularly influenced by the proposals made by Gio Ponti in Domus and by the return to modernity in popular Mediterranean architecture. Ponti played a decisive role in Coderch's professional life, both as regards his definitive awareness of the need for new interpretations of the legacy of modern architecture and his influence in introducing Coderch onto the international scene, where he was welcomed as a master of emerging Spanish architecture. In spite of this excellent position, the important friendships he made at international level and the many opportunities these contacts afforded him, Coderch's participation in the cultural and theoretical debates of his time was problematic, as illustrated by his brief membership of Grupo R in the early 1950s and of Team X at the start of the 1960s. His participation was perhaps limited by his misgivings in the face of architectural discourses which were moving away from the verification of design and by his disappointment at discovering how difficult it was to put notably experimental proposals into practice. These reasons go some way to explaining Coderch's gradual disillusionment and partial withdrawal as of the mid-1960s, when he began to take on the urban context, a field in which he never felt truly at ease, despite the quality of works such as the Girasol building, in which he strove to produce an original reworking of his proposals for the individual dwelling in collective terms.   Even more than the construction of his studio-home in Plaça de Calvó (1946), in the Barcelona district of Sant Gervasi, for Coderch the project which truly represented his own domestic values was the purchase and renovation of the old family home in the village of Espolla. This symbolic return to his origins came about as the result of an intense period of public commitment for Coderch, an effort which, however, ultimately acted as a discouragement for a man who was already unsure of the possibility of defending architecture and teaching on the basis of theory in such an unreceptive environment. It was therefore with great joy and the realisation of enacting what was almost a rite which would reunite him with his predecessors that in 1964 Coderch undertook the remodelling of the Mas del Puig, a building dating from the eighteenth century which had been sold in the early twentieth century by the brother of his great-grandfather. Coderch himself loved to recall the fortuitous circumstances of the discovery of the house, explaining how a friend who was passing through Espolla saw an inscription on the lintel of one of the doors, referring to a renovation which had been carried out just before the French Revolution by Coderch's great-great-grandfather, Narciso. For the architect, the recovery of the Coderch family house was a definite opportunity to recovery historical memory, an act of bonding with his land, in the place which was the repository of the most deeply felt family memories. "My family said that I was crazy. But it was our motherhouse, and the one that I was most interested in," he declared in his Conversations with Enric Soria. For Coderch, then, the importance of the project lay in the evocative capacity of these domestic spaces, more even than in the actual architectural solutions which were guided by the discoveries made during work in progress, during the excavation of the bowels of the house in search of the secrets it concealed. In an interview with Baltasar Porcel, published in 1967 in Destino, Coderch clearly explained the reason for his interest: "It is like going back to my roots, linking up with the past, with my grandmother, full of fantastic stories that thrilled me, and her cats; with my father who used to say 'There are things a Coderch cannot do'; with the farm people." It was, therefore, another manifestation of the attitude of consistency which Coderch upheld, of the need to conserve the fragments of a dying world and keep them alive by giving them new meanings. It was in this spirit that Coderch undertook the renovation of the house, which had been damaged by years of transformations and additions. Situated in a village in the Alt Empordà, the building presents the typical characteristics of the rural constructions of the area, comprising a porch, a ground floor originally intended as stables and a first floor with an attic as the living quarters. The rehabilitation, which only affected the ground floor, took the form of an intense dialogue between the architect and the building with a view to recovering, as far as possible, the integrity of the original structure with its stone-built walls and vaults, and carefully incorporating new elements which were charged with giving contemporary significance to this space of memory. The central part of this comfortable refuge where the architect was to spend long periods of time was the living-cum-dining room, which also leads into the other rooms: the master bedroom, another cosier living room which communicates directly with the children's bedroom, a third bedroom and the kitchen. Despite the limitations imposed by the existing structure, the architect was able to adapt the spaces to the complexity of a contemporary domestic programme, as in the best examples of his own work. The most characteristic elements of Coderch's architecture are in this way combined with the essential nature of the original spaces: the walls take the form of long benches and ledges which determine the use of each room, the few items of furniture are specially designed to make the most of space, the fireplaces and the lamps, also designed by the architect, confer intimacy and quiet seclusion to a house which is the quintessence of the home. In this austere but warm setting, Coderch recreated the essential elements of the culture of habitation which had always been a major concern for him. The sensation of security of walls which are charged with memories and the promise of continuity of the home, reminding us that the family still exists, are the elements responsible for materialising a spirit which is at once domestic, contemporary and deeply rooted in the culture of habitation, as expressed in the writings of Heidegger, Sartre and Bachelard, but also in Aldo Van Eyck's call for the active participation of architecture in the development of psychological and emotional aspects: a spirit which, in short, addressed the need to recover habitation as an experience, which believed in the possibility of giving modern man the local and universal roots which modernity had tried to undermine. < BACK Pablo Sustersic