Tangled systems. The Leoz Method versus the construction technique

Abstract

Rafael Leoz was an enigmatic architect among those of his generation because he was searching for something different from the others: a method for designing the architecture of the future; and the fact that he was able to construct some buildings with this 'method' redefines the importance of his contribution. After his participation in the 6th Sao Paulo Biennale in 1961, he composed an attractive narrative which, collected in numerous publications, has brought him to the verge of mythification. Research on his work has focused mainly on the "Hele module" and its involvement in the industrialisation of social housing, and this is the main reason why the implications of his method, which is included in the book "Networks and Spatial Rhythms", have not been studied in depth.

In the short 15 years of his professional life, Leoz established fruitful transversal relationships with artists, thinkers and politicians, but it was his connection with concrete art and his collaboration with the CCUM (Centro de Cálculo de la Universidad de Madrid) that strengthened research into his method. As early as the 1970s, with the incorporation of the new geometric dimensions of the hyperpolyhedra, the principles of which were outlined in an unfinished new book, he verified the validity of the "Leoz Method" with the construction of the Spanish Embassy in Brasilia. The Leoz Method, which can be applied to both teaching and architectural design, shows a way of working that, based on its modular essence, allows us to understand the creation of spaces as the result of a constant combinatorial transformation that unfolds over time.