Premio COACV 1999-2000/ 1999-2000 COACV PrizeTrayectoria Profesional/ Profesional Career

Francisco Muñoz Llorens

Por Jordi Navas

A menudo se suele decir quela obra de un autor escapaa cualquier intento declasificación para destacarla originalidad de suquehacer y etiquetar dealgún modo una trayectoriapoco lineal que desborda elrecetario de categoríasestilísticas. En su dilatadoperiplo vital y profesional,con 54 años ejerciendocomo arquitecto y más de80 destilando humanidad,Francisco Muñoz Llorens halogrado subvertir el tópico.Su actividad edilicia,copiosa y reconocible, sepresta como pocas a lasiempre fácil tarea deengastar los productos de lacreación en modelospreestablecidos. Sinembargo, la tarea de emitirun dictamen puro eincontaminado queenmarque el conjunto de suobra se hace complejaporque su labor encaja envarios moldes y sutrayectoria combina variasfacetas definibles.El primero de estos moldes yquizá el más superficial es elque asocia su figura a unaarquitectura de consumoalimentada por aportes delestilo internacional peroalejada en sus metas de losfundamentos delmovimiento moderno.Esta vertiente profesionalcoincide con la fiebredesarrollista de los años 60,70 y principios de los 80 y conel auge de una producciónseriada al servicio de losintereses de un colectivoempresarial con mando enplaza y justificada por una

It is often said that an author’s workescapes any attempt at aclassification that tries to highlighthis originality and somehow put alabel on a career that takes differentdirections and overflows the book ofstylistic categories. During his longhuman and professional life, with over54 years as a practising architectand over 80 exuding humanity,Francisco Muñoz Llorens hasmanaged to subvert the clichés. Hisbuilding output, copious andrecognisable, lends itself better thanmost to the ever easy task of settingthe products of creation in pre-established moulds. However, it isdifficult to make an honest, untainted judgement that gives an overallpicture because his work fits intovarious moulds and his careercombines various definable facets.The first of these moulds, possiblythe most superficial one, is toassociate him with a consumerarchitecture that was nourished bycontributions from the internationalstyle but had aims that distanced itfrom the basic premises ofmodernism.This professional aspect coincidedwith the development fever of the60s, 70s and early 80s and with therise of a mass production that servedthe interests of a group of companieswith considerable influence and was justified by the incessant demand.The second approach shows Muñozas a champion of the modernarchitecture associated with the

promociones huérfanas

or ‘orphanyears’ (Cabrero, Fisac, Sáenz deOíza and Alejandro de la Sota inMadrid, Coderch, Moragas, Sostresand Mitjans in Catalonia), as he tookadvantage of the régime’s difficultiesin imposing an architectural canonand, almost by stealth, managed tosupersede its anachronistichistoricism and bring the spirit ofrenewal that was abroad in Madrid(where he graduated in 1947) to

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demanda incesante.El segundo enfoque nospresenta a Muñoz como unvaledor de la arquitecturamoderna vinculado a las"promociones huérfanas"(Cabrero, Fisac, Sáenz deOíza y Alejandro de la Sota,en Madrid, Coderch,Moragas, Sostres, Mitjans, enel foco catalán), que supoaprovechar los problemasdel régimen a la hora deimponer un canonarquitectónico para lograr,casi de puntillas, superar elhistoricismo anacrónico ytraer hasta Alicante los airesde renovación quesoplaban por Madrid, dondese tituló en 1947. Todo ello,sin perder de vista lasconsignas sembradas por elpionero de la modernidaden tierras alicantinas, MiguelLópez, quien tras sobrevivir alas depuracionesprofesionales de la primeraposguerra siguióimpartiendo su magisterio ytuvo a Muñoz comocompañero de tareas endiversos proyectos(renovación del paseo de laExplanada de España, sedecentral del Banco deAlicante).Durante su etapa deestudiante en la Escuela deMadrid, en la que adquirióuna sólida formacióntécnica apoyada en losrigores académicos del plande estudio de 1933,Francisco Muñoz conoció amuchos de los profesionalesque protagonizarían el gransalto delante de laarquitectura española deposguerra. Llegó a trabaruna relación de amistad conalguno de ellos, como Sáenzde Oíza, alumno de unapromoción anterior, conquien compartió tienda decampaña en la miliciauniversitaria.Más allá de las aulas de laescuela madrileña,gobernada con pulso firmepor su entonces directorModesto López Otero, quien

.losing sight of the seminal sayings ofMiguel López. This pioneer ofmodernism in the Alicante area hadsurvived the professional purges justafter the Civil War and continued toteach, and Muñoz worked with himon various projects (renovation of theExplanada de España promenade,Banco de Alicante headquarters).Francisco Muñoz met many of thosewho were to play a leading rôle in thegreat advances of post-civil warSpanish architecture during his timeas a student in the Madrid School ofArchitecture, where he acquired asolid technical foundation based onthe academic rigour of the 1933curriculum. He made friends withsome of them, such as Sáenz deOíza, who was in a higher year butwith whom he shared a tent duringtheir military service in the summerholidays.While attending the lecture halls ofthe Madrid School, ruled with a firmhand by the then director, ModestoLópez Otero, who favoured theautarkic school and was notreceptive to rationalist currents,Muñoz must have breathed the spiritof renovation in the corridors andcafes until he became imbued withthe creative spirit and the desire forchange that was later to crystallisein the Alhambra manifesto, signedamong others by Fisac and Cabrero,and in the Grupo R in Barcelona.There is no other way to explain thedetermination with which he becameinvolved in a language of renewalright from his earliest works. Onlytwo years after returning to Alicante,Muñoz decided to banish thetraditional nineteenth centurybalcony from his typologicalrepertoire and replace it with theterrace balcony associated with thecity-buildings of Le Corbusier, whosefirst real examples, as opposed tohis theoretical writings and drawing-board sketches from the 20sonwards, saw the light of day in thelate 40s and, above all, the early50s, in the Unité d’habitation deMarseille.The first example of this type ofsolution being applied in Alicantewas designed by Francisco Muñozand dates from 1949. The project fora block of flats at no.10, Avenida dela Estación was followed by manyother instances of the terracebalcony being perfectly suited to theclimate and environment of a citywhere motorised traffic was still apurely incidental factor.

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autárquica e impermeable alas corrientes racionalistas,Muñoz debió aspirar los airesde renovación en los pasillosy en los cafés hastaimpregnarse del alientocreador y de la voluntad decambio que más tardecristalizaría en el Manifiestode la Alhambra, suscrito,entre otros, por Fisac yCabrero, y en la formacióndel Grupo R en Barcelona.Sólo así se explica la decisióncon la que se enfrascó en laaplicación de un lenguajerenovador desde susprimeras obras. Tan sólo dosaños después de su regresoa Alicante, Muñoz decidedesterrar de su repertoriotipológico el tradicionalbalcón decimonónico ysustituirlo por el balcónterraza asociado alinmueble-villa de LeCorbusier, cuyos primerosejemplos, más allá de losescritos teóricos y de losapuntes realizados sobre eltablero desde los años 20,vieron la luz a finales de loscuarenta y, sobre todo, aprincipios de los 50 en laUnidad de Habitación deMarsella.La primera muestra de laaplicación de esta solucióntipológica en Alicante tienela firma de Francisco Muñozy data de 1949. Se trata delproyecto para un edificio deviviendas en la avenida dela Estación número 10, alque seguirían otros tantosejemplos de la perfectaadaptación del balcónterraza a las condicionesclimatológicas yambientales de una ciudaden la que el tráficoautomovilístico era todavíauna cuestión anecdótica.El edificio para AlfonsoDoménech de la avenida dela Estación esquina a la calleTucumán, el realizado paraMiralles, Suay y Abad de laplaza de los Luceros número13 o el que albergó lavivienda y el estudio delpropio arquitecto, ubicadoen la calle Alberola y con

The building for Alfonso Doménechon the corner of the Avenida de laEstación and Tucumán street, theone at no. 13, Plaza de los Lucerosfor Miralles, Suay and Abad or thatwhich held his own house andstudio, in Alberola street with afaçade onto the Explanada deEspaña, bear witness to Muñoz’scapacity to go beyond the formalaspect of the balcony and treat it aspart of the composition of the façade.His liveable terraces used theirsouth-facing position to bring toned-down natural light into the daytimefamily rooms and blur the frontiersbetween interior and exterior spaces.As Varela and Bevià explain, bothMuñoz and Juan Antonio GarcíaSolera, who began to practise in1953, were able to develop this andother elements of the modernistvocabulary thanks to the urbanrenewal that was taking place in thecity of Alicante at the time and totheir being in tune with a middleclass clientèle that discovered theanswer to its social aspirations anddesire for well-being and a certaindegree of luxury in the housingdesigned by these two architects.Despite the differences, the contextwas similar to that of Madrid aroundthe same time, where GutiérrezSoto, converted to modernism, wasstriving to find typological solutionsto meet the demands of his uppermiddle class clients in theSalamanca district.

An architecture of colour

Another aspect of FranciscoMuñoz’s work is his decision to buildan "architecture of colour", coveringthe façades of his buildings withprimary colours. As he said: "I havealways been obsessed with linkingarchitecture and painting", and theAlicante College of Architects paidhomage to his skill with pencil andbrush in 1999 when it organised anexhibition entitled The Architect’sDrawings.Many factors had a decisiveinfluence on Munoz’s pictorialvocation. His father, the painterFrancisco Muñoz, ran a well knownstudio that produced film posters forthe façades of the main cinemas.They were painted in oils on a glue-sized brown canvas known as

cotonet

. Business was quite goodand the workforce, which includedpromising artists such as Pérez Gil,made as much as 1.25 pesetas aday.