Alberto Veiga, the co-founder of the internationally acclaimed architecture firm Barozzi Veiga, emphasises that the principle of “sentimental monumentality” has guided their approach to projects. Established in Barcelona in 2004, the practice has been commissioned for a wide array of public and private projects, focusing primarily on cultural, civic and educational structures. Alberto will be a keynote speaker at the 2024 Australian Architecture Conference, where he will discuss the firm’s current and built projects, as well as the design approach and methodology of the practice.

Barozzi Veiga’s projects are highly revered, with many the outcome of national and international competitions. Notable works include the Ribera del Duero Headquarter (2011), the Auditorium Infanta Elena in Águilas (2011), the Szczecin Philharmonic Hall (2014), the Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur (2016), the Ragenhaus Musikschule in Bruneck (2018), the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne (2019), the Tanzhaus Zürich (2019), the two Artists’ Ateliers in London (2021), and the Aesop store in Barcelona (2022).

Veiga explained a significant part of the appeal of public competitions is that the concept wholly originates from and belongs to the practice, rather than being heavily driven by external influences. Beyond that, he said public projects enable the practice to give something back by creating an affecting experience for the inhabitants and visitors of a place.

“Working in our profession is like a public service because we can affect a lot of people. When we are designing a public building it feels as if you can close the circle somehow because the work is for the citizens. You can give back through public projects and that makes us feel really good, whether it’s a library, a museum, a small school or whatever it is,” he said.

Alberto likened participating in design competitions to going to the gym, suggesting that competitions serve as an effective training ground for designers to improve and refine their designs and design approach. “When it comes to competitions, well, we lose a lot of them. But there is still so much value in participating. We need to take part in competitions to understand where we are with the ideas that we propose compared to others. Of course you need a win from time to time [in a financial sense] but competitions are the best method that we have found to improve our work,” he said.

The firm follows what they refer to as a approach coined “sentimental monumentality” throughout the design process. Sentimental relates to the specificity of site in a cultural, contextual or historical sense, while monumentality refers to autonomy. “It’s about trying to find a balance between these two concepts of sentimental, meaning having a kind of personal approach and being contextual, and monumental, meaning something autonomous, something that has values by itself,” he added, “monumental is not linked with context.”

The incorporation of the “sentimental” component can be observed in the design of the Szczecin Philharmonic Hall in Poland. The practice selected an imitation gold leaf to be applied on the interior walls of the main concert hall after discovering that it was customary within the culture to work with gold leaf and apply it within churches and other historical buildings such as concert halls. Several workshops across the city continue to specialise in working with gold leaf for the purpose of maintaining and restoring historical buildings.

“For us, there was this desire to reinterpret a classic concert hall typology in a contemporary way but there was also the added benefits of there being a local gold leaf industry already there and labour in Poland is much more affordable than in other countries in Europe. We just thought it made sense, because of the building, the site and because it was affordable,” Alberto said.

“The women who applied it worked tirelessly, applying gold leaf for eight hours a day, constantly, for about eight or nine months. It was amazing to see them work.” Two expansive skylights strategically positioned within the main concert hall allow natural light to bounce off the golden walls and different times of the day, offering a unique visual experience every time you visit.

One of the main objectives of Barozzi Veiga, Alberto explained, is to create buildings that belong to a specific place but that could also simply belong. “A building belongs to the place that it is located but they also need to belong to something greater than the physical place that they are. When you think about an impressionist painting, it always shocks me to see that everybody can understand what the painter in France in the 19th century was trying to represent in their paintings of flowers in a village. The painting may be hanging up in China yet you still thousands of people looking at that painting and relating, understanding. They don’t know the place, they don’t know the painter, but they feel something. We modestly try to achieve that same outcome with the work that we do.”

Alberto Veiga will be a keynote speaker at the 2024 Australian Architecture Conference, to be held in Melbourne from 8 to 11 May. See the full program and purchase tickets on the Australian Institute of Architects website.