La obra de ingeniería como obra de arte (2010) Javier Manterola
Bridges -writes Javier Manterola- have not fallen within the radius of action of art critics. It seems as if they were transparent: they are not seen, they are of no interest and they are not understood. Sometimes it seems that only painting exists as a work of art. However, in this confusing world of art, public works are becoming more and more insistently visible. Roads and railroads may become authentic works of Land Art. The present times and their broad approaches to what art is will not take long to discover the formidable beauty of bridges, dams, roads…. And even if this is not too important for public works, it is very important for the art of our time.
The book gathers six articles and lectures by Javier Manterola, written between 1997 and 2009. The texts, enlarged, cover different positions from which the author looks at the creative problem with the intention of widening the scope of action of engineering. Civil work is not only infrastructure, nor does it exclusively resolve a functional problem. As an author of bridges, in several chapters he approaches the relationship between bridges and their surroundings and their aesthetic problems. He analyzes the relationship between the resisting structure and the form, a subject dealt about in his speech of admission to the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. He confronts engineering and sculpture, and considers, as in the title itself, the bridge, the dam and the road as works of art.
In Javier Manterola’s own words:
“at the beginning of the 19th century, a group of individuals appeared who, in a wild way, dynamited the whole conceptual building that architecture had constructed throughout history […] It is essential that the art of engineers, with its history, its art, its evolution, its imaginative, inventive and creative language, be introduced into the general culture”.
Juan José Jorquera-Lucerga
Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena
Manterola, Javier. La obra de ingeniería como obra de arte. Madrid: Laetoli Editorial, 2010.