Oteiza's sculpture in Beatriz Building

Place: Madrid
Date: 2017
Design/direction: Eduardo Delgado Orusco
Team: Javier Rincón Sánchez, Miguel Quirós Esteban

In the course of my relationship with the Beatriz building, which began in June 2006, I discovered a copy of a photo montage of Jorge Oteiza's project for Beatriz on one of the walls of the meeting room that Vyosa kept in the building. Trying to unravel the origin of that image, and after asking the manager and other technicians, I dug in the scarce bibliography related to the project, finding a reference - a single photograph, without further explanation - in the book published by Darío Gazapo and Concha Lapayese titled Oteiza, architect.

Notwithstanding the meagerness of information - it may be precisely for this very reason that I felt called to trace the origin and intrahistory of that chapter of the building. This concern led me to contact the Museo-Fundación Oteiza, located in Alzuza (Navarra) where I actually found the keys, not only of the project, but also of its non-fulfillment: the invitation unilaterally convoked by the architect in the final stretch of execution of which had been a difficult execution of the building, with some interruptions and prolonged for almost a decade, the epistolary relations between architect and sculptor and the difficulties derived from the execution, with a certain final scandal provoked by the impatience and the good relations in the means of the author of the sculptural project included, and that were effectively determinants for the stoppage of the piece.

All this exciting story was poured into a small booklet published by the Museum-Foundation in 2009. Already in that text -even in its title- was raised the reconsideration of the execution of the project. With this in mind, there were contacts and advances that took place in the year 2015, when, after the judgment favorable to the interests of the heiress of the sculptor, his niece Pilar Oteiza, on the exploitation rights of his work, we deal with the matter with her. His position was favorable from the first conversation but with due attention to the memory of the sculptor, which would have to be specified in a series of cultural projects to accompany the project's execution: a small permanent exhibition in the building, to make present and explain the project, an audiovisual that recorded the construction of the sculpture and could accompany the previous exhibition; an investigation concerning the relations of the sculptor with the city of Madrid and other projects of a similar nature and that it would have to be concretized in the moment.