Cities are the great stages of transformation of contemporary society. They generate and channel new identities, new forms of relationship, affiliation and meaning. In them, the tension between the individual and the collective, between public and private space, between “mine” and “ours”, shows all its capacity to create new spaces of relevance, responding to new individual or collective needs. This framework in constant movement forces citizen institutions to generate new identities of action that respond to and transit through the new values, and that redefine what it means today to be “useful” to the citizenry.
The College of Architects of Madrid (COAM), responds to this new profile of citizen institution thanks to a process of innovation, promoted by Nadie. Today, its symbolic universe and its territory of action and influence go far beyond serving architects. It is an institution that plays a leading role in the public life of the city, channelling social energy, generating benefits for citizens and new enriching relationships.
Arquitecto de la casa: a new concept of architect and architecture.
The buildings, the houses, are containers of life. To preserve them is to preserve our identity, public and private, what we are, how we live and where we live. Nobody helped COAM to face this collective challenge: a call to citizen action to preserve our buildings and improve the habitability of the city.
For this reason we created and developed the professional figure of the ‘Architect of the House’. Accessible, involved, connected to the real needs of people and their daily lives. A key and necessary professional for the conservation of our buildings, but also for the improvement of the quality of life of those who inhabit them and the city they form. A project that also responds to the new realities of architecture and construction in Spain, generating a new professional profile and stimulating demand from neighbors and communities.
