El paisaje del litoral y los efectos del turismo según J.M. Sostres. El legado al turismo litoral

Abstract

2015 es el año del centenario del nacimiento de Josep Maria Sostres. Se habían enterado, en Catalunya ha habido modestísimas iniciativas, muy poco para quien fue -en palabras de Quetglas- el “ crítico más profundo y, por lo tanto, menos influyente en las cuatro últimas décadas de la arquitectura catalana1”. Los grandes homenajes se dejan para los mediáticos y suelen ser ampulosos, poco reflexivos; con Sostres hagamos lo contrario, no seamos mediáticos, seamos poco influyentes: estudiemos su obra, leamos sus textos. Este es el intento del presente estudio, al abordar la relación de Sostres con uno de las principales problemas de su tiempo, la transformación del paisaje litoral en los albores del turismo. Sostres se ocupó de este tema desde su doble condición de crítico y arquitecto práctico. El presente trabajo pretende mostrar la aportación teórica de Sostres desde un texto inédito y el conocido “ paisaje y diseño” contrastándolos con la práctica de Sostres en Torredembarra.

The article is focussed on the relationship of Sostres with the touristic architecture developed at the littoral. This analysis is made with three works of Sostres: a building –four apartments at Torredembarra- and two writings –“landscape and design” and another reproduced at the end of this article that was remained not published until today. Sostres had not the possibility of building a lot and most of his buildings he builds are dedicated to the architecture of the free time –secondary residences, rental apartments, and a hotel. That is why is relevant his production as a critic on the use of the territory for this architecture of the free time. Sostres seems to understand that this abuse of the territory is because of this new type of buildings and he made a new statement in the one that building is not the devil because landscape needs this building. The writings of Sostres state that when one has to build in this surrounding has to have some continuity with the Mediterranean tradition. In the apartments at Torredembarra we can see this tradition in the use and transformation of the type of building -botigues- with the use of the ground floor and the kind of plotting he uses. But to understand the Mediterranean tradition is not a just a reinterpretation of what he has on the surroundings, Sostres understand the landscape as a cultural tradition. That is why his buildings, I understand, are a lecture of the Greek architecture that is the architecture of the Mediterranean in Sostres mind. He was professor of History of Architecture at the Barcelona school and one of the main books he recommend was The Idea of Space in Greek Architecture of Martienssen. This article uses this text as a touchtone in relation to the four apartments at Torredembarra. In Sostres mind, the transformation of the landscape seems to be unstoppable. This transformation should have the same principles that have buildings that build the building until then.