“Intellectual practice has always been a defining feature of Josep Lluís Mateo’s work (Barcelona, 1949). There is in him a deeply personal and inexhaustible determination to engage thought through reflective and critical observation, as well as self-analysis, with architecture as its central axis—an approach that has consistently taken shape in writings, exhibitions, debates, and publications.

Taken together, this body of work portrays Mateo as a profoundly lucid individual who refuses to use intellectual activity as a means of constructing a reality in which to fit without conflict. On the contrary, he seeks to confront directly the challenges, problems, and contradictions of his time in order to think through them—to be an architect through them. Mateo embodies that essential combination of thinking and making, but above all, he embodies a way of thinking through making […]”

“Every architect finds, in the creative process, their own way of thinking about space. In some cases, drawings, sketches, and models are as compelling as the built work itself, although they are not always accessible to the curious eye of the public. This known yet less visible dimension of the profession is part of Open Work, the exhibition that the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC) presents until next Sunday (22) at its headquarters in central Barcelona. The show brings together more than three decades of work by architect Josep Lluís Mateo (Barcelona, 1949) and takes place in the year Barcelona has been designated World Capital of Architecture.

“The world without architecture would be unintelligible,” writes Mateo in the introductory text that opens the exhibition. The show builds on this statement to present architecture as a process in constant construction. Drawings and sketches are digitally transformed and gain precision with the support of models, which help give shape to volume and space […]”