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Félix de Azúa. Writer. Barcelona, 1944

 

My first encounter with the architecture of Tusquets was hearsay. Towards the end of the seventies, Oscar’s friends told me that he had brought about a revolution in the design of the domestic bedroom. By all accounts, he had incorporated the bedroom into the kitchen so that there would be no discontinuity between the amorous and culinary arts, and so that each might be interchangeable at any given moment. On the other hand, the living room included a WC with the aim of eliminating the bourgeois prejudices which had hitherto consigned excretory functions to a lesser plane, he deeming that they should be public and shared. The dressing room also served as an entrance hall, so that the visiting postman, gas-meter reader or beggar might be a party to the dressing ritual of the householder caught in his or her undies, or might even engage in a little garment swapping. The utility room, it seemed, included a study, and the shower a library. In short (according to Oscar’s friends), his was a liberating architecture which subverted the bourgeois lifestyle and its repressive customs. Like Buñuel’s films, Oscar’s designs (according to his friends) cast light on the charms of the bourgeoisie, both discreet and indiscreet, and by making them visible saved them from repression, attacked foreclosure and contributed to an economy of pleasure without the handicap of inhibition (according to Oscar’s friends). / Faced with such promise, I eagerly accepted the first invitation to attend a lavish party in the house designed by Tusquets as part of La Balsa restaurant. If my memory serves me, it was a celebration of some literary event related with Beatriz de Moura’s publishing company (Tusquets Editores); there were quite a few literati there, many beards, and all were revolutionaries and friends of Oscar. /  I cannot say that the building disappointed me. However, the effects did not quite live up to what I had expected. The entire space was, above all, elegant; in other words, dominated by a harmony of scale that even such non-experts as myself could see as almost musical in nature. The suppression of bourgeois inhibition seemed mainly to affect the traditional division between garden and interior, in a way also advocated by such non-subversives as Mies. I watched carefully for anyone who might attempt to copulate in the kitchen or dining room; however, not even faecal activities took place in public; indeed, they were consigned to a secluded area which it took me a consi-derable time to find. On the contrary, the transparency of the setting seemed to impose even greater than usual modesty and reserve on the guests, who behaved with much more decorum than at other parties in bourgeois homes filled throughout with macramé and family photos framed in silver - where I had seen them behave like pigs. The truth was that Tusquets’s design struck me as being closer to Dreyer’s films than Buñuel’s and only at the end of the party did an eminent poet tell a famous publisher what an idiot he had always considered him to be. However, this of course is quite characteristic of Dreyer’s films! / That day, I began to lose faith in the revolution which was looming (according to Oscar’s friends). And I started to do my sums to see if I could move to a new house.

Eduardo Mendoza, Félix de Azúa and Oscar.  Barceloneta Beach. Summer 2002