Interview with Javier Peña — Ibáñez

Your bio includes a lot of renowned institutions and projects. You must have started your career very young!

Yes, the truth is that I have been developing projects since I was very young, also from my studies. I always had a lot of concerns and this was a way of channelling them and testing ideas.

How would you describe yourself in three words?

Perseverance, intuition, energy.

When have you first come to realize that architecture is your calling?

In the last years of school and high school, I saw that it was a very complete education that combined humanism and technical aspects, so I could make the most of it to organise my way of seeing and knowing how to interpret the context.

Who is your greatest influence – role model?

In the early years perhaps my family, my older sister, also studied art and we worked together on several projects. That basis is relevant to the way I've been working since then.

What about the idea of the city? How is it changing, developing? How is it influencing you personally?

I always thought that in cities you have to be alert all the time. Changes have many variables, social, economic, that's why they are complex to detect, and by the time the change has started it is irreversible. Times are slow, but it is complex to change dynamics, so you have to be always evolving, looking for progress.

If we immerse into our own feeling/emotion that the landscape/our surrounding is evoking in us, does the landscape begin to communicate with us? Is it enriching us? Is it changing our emotions? Or is it just an impression?

The environment is part of people, we are social animals. That is why it is our way of completing our character, our identity and our sense of home is of great importance.

You are the founder of the Concéntrico Festival. What does the name mean?

We thought of the name with the idea of a spansive wave, to generate a route that, like an echo, could have a reverberation beyond where it is produced.

Your festival is quite specific. What makes it so special/different?

I think there has been a great connection between the city and the content. We establish a dialogue with the people and we both learn in order to go deeper into the topics we deal with.

Does it always take place in the same spaces?

No, we are exploring new locations, new urban typologies. We try to approach them from a universal perspective in order to propose ideas that respond to this space but also to others that we may have in our cities with a similar configuration.

You say that the festival is a dialogue between the city, the heritage and contemporary architecture, which in a way activates the perception of the people who live there… That is interesting; could you explain it a bit more?

We have to prevent the drift of many cities to super-protected places that remain as models of another era. We need living, vibrant spaces that welcome all audiences, also the new generations that have new ways of interacting and references. Therefore, the contemporary must be incorporated into the public space as it gives new codes of what today's societies are like.

On the Festival website, you explain that Concéntrico invites the visitors to explore the city through installations, exhibitions and events that offer a new way of looking at the city. That sounds intriguing. Could you tell us more?

Many people are visitors in their own city. That's interesting because it makes us go out and look again at places that maybe we don't pay attention to anymore. That's exploring, giving us the capacity to imagine different futures.

Isn’t it quite magical?

It is suggestive, propositive, provocative.

If I get it right, you see an individual as an integral part of architecture, which in turn has an impact on the individual and uplifts them?

That's right, they are places that are completed with use, and people are the ones who shape it and give it meaning.

How do you pick the artists you work with?

We look for different practices, so that the result in Concentric is complex and varied. There is a very diverse audience and we like to respond to this varied way of approaching the contents of the festival.

Concéntrico is celebrating its 7th year. Since 2015, you have introduced 91 urban installations created by the world’s leading architects and designers. Can you tell us your fondest memory – either an artist or an installation?

The success of Concentric is the sum of experiences, we always start from the idea of a journey, that's why the intensity that is produced after participating in several spaces is suggestive. For this reason, more than individual, I can speak of lines of work that have been relevant.

How do you work with the Czech Centre Madrid?

Very good, I have already worked with two management teams and they have always transmitted a great energy for the project. It is fortunate to be able to count on the Czech Centre and the knowledge it brings about the network of architecture in the country.

How have you connected with the Czech Skull Studio, which will be taking part in this year’s edition?

It was a conversation I had with Jana Polivkova, we met a week after I arrived in Madrid to take up the directorship of the Czech Centre. The trip to the 2021 edition of Concentric was her first contact with other colleagues from other centres and on her return we were able to talk about several names and studios, finally we considered that SKULL met the conditions for this year's edition.

How will the Czech participation look like? Will the installation be used even after the Festival?

Yes, they have been very relevant projects such as KOGAA's Aerial Circus, which has been mounted 7 more times and is now a product within their line of work.

You have had the opportunity to meet many colleagues in Prague. Was it inspiring for you?

The trip has been very inspiring. I have met a centre like CAMP, a very prestigious centre with a very relevant work in the dissemination of architecture and urban policies. I'm sure I'll have to come back with more time to do a project in the city.

Finally – what’s next for you and Concéntrico?

We are always with Concéntrico in our heads, it is a constant evolution that we find in its own development. That's why we are lucky to be getting the decisions we make right.

Thank you for your time!