I am always very suspicious of defining myself in words. The words you mentioned only describe some aspects of my architecture. What I believe very strongly is that architecture is an art, and like many of the arts, it engages in inventing a certain universe that doesn’t exist until it appears. How it appears, I don’t know, and I don’t force it. I am not an intellectual. I am not a person who reasons. I am a person of images. I make images. Sometimes, images come to me; sometimes, they don’t. I simply need to be disciplined to let these images come and try to understand what they mean, if anything. Of course, interpreting them requires having certain professional skills to see what aspects of these images are valid. I strongly believe that every act of the creation belongs to myth-making, a sort of inventing an explanation. That’s where the magic resides.

I am often asked about my sketches. I don’t see much value in those. When the image comes, I simply draw what I remember, like a diagram. I don’t design by sketching. I design everything in my head. First comes the image; then, I elaborate on it. I typically do it while waiting for the elevator or the subway. Once the image is finalized mentally, I draw it up. And I always work in sections, not plans. I perceive architecture phenomenologically, horizontally, not from above, because I don’t pretend to be an angel. As you can see, I don’t have wings. [Laughs.] When I design a section, I think of a plan as well, but it is the section that concerns me the most. Once I finish my initial sketch, I pass it on to collaborators in my office, and we start working from there.

I do have a witness to that. My witness and I were in bed.

That’s all right. Anyway, when the image suddenly came, I described it to her. I could come up with a whole theory about this project, but the truth is that it came to me as a complete image. I think it is a great tragedy when the word arrives before the image. In my case, the only thing I had to do was not to forget the image. [Laughs.] When she left, I drew it up. Then I worked on refining it by putting in the kitchen and bathrooms, and so on. The key is always to have a strong enough image that can move the heart.

I can only tell you what my secretary said to me when she saw Michele’s photographs for the first time. She exclaimed, “It looks just like the model!” She was correct. If you look at the model and the house, and for 25 years — from 1975, when I first drew it, to 2000, when the house was completed — I had nothing but the model, the two were exactly the same. The house is in impeccable condition; every seven years we repaint the entire façade because of the birds. Of course, if I had a cornice, cleaning would be much easier. But I am a true modernist, so I do buildings without cornices. [Laughs.] And the house still looks the same as when it was built 24 years ago or when it came to me for the first time, almost 50 years ago, when I was in bed. [Laughs.]

I use fables to explain ideas but not specific projects. It is much stronger to present ideas using fables. As I told you before, I detest writing theories; I prefer writing fables.

More than that: A fable that gets inside a fertile head has the potential to bloom. Projects are different. Once I make the image, that’s it. In any case, when I think about the house, I have difficulties to even begin to describe it. I prefer it when someone else describes it. [Laughs.] You can also use a fable to design a project. I have done so, but not in this case. I even used that idea with my students. You give them a fable and ask, What kind of a building can this story generate? It is a good exercise.

Not at all. It just came for no reason. Sorry. [Laughs.]

The very first project I designed was also a house. I was just 15. It was a house for a couple. They were school teachers and had a plot of land across the street from the house I lived in with my parents in Buenos Aires. Regrettably, my design was never built. At the time, I had never heard of Le Corbusier or Cubism, or anything about modern architecture, but it came out to be a cubist house. No original drawings survived. I gave them to the couple because I am not sentimental about drawings. Years later, I reconstructed that house in a model and drawings. It had no windows onto the street, only to the internal patio with plants and a water feature.

I designed it independent of any location. But I had to locate it somewhere. Since it had Moorish influences, I thought it would be in Cordoba. Years later, in the late ’90s, I found an ideal site for it outside of Seville. It is on high ground in a cool, windy spot, with a beautiful lake view. It is an extraordinarily magical site, absolutely unique. It is where the first silver mines in all of Europe originated. Silver was the reason Julius Caesar came to Spain. The site was owned by Rio Tinto, a British-Australian corporation, one of the world’s largest metals and mining companies. They abandoned this site sometime between the wars. No one knows if there is still silver there. I don’t care if there is any.

A broker showed it to me. I didn’t need such a big area, but the specific location I was interested in, a small peninsula on a lake, was only for sale as a part of a much larger site, which happens to be 500 hectares.

Due north, the sun always hits the inner sides of the two walls, which is how the house receives light. Even the reflected light would have been too bright, so I had to create an inglenook where you could comfortably sit inside in the shade. It is my favourite place in the house.

Well, that was my usual way of making jokes. No, I wanted to create architecture! I wanted to create architecture by bringing it back to the very beginning. You know, this could have been Adam’s first house, provided he would have managed to find a friendly banker. [Laughs.]

No, the house describes itself perfectly well. Everyone who has ever been to this house told me they could never imagine how much presence it has and how much impact it makes. It conveys a feeling that this is the place where architecture had been invented.

That’s the way I see it. Other people may see only two walls and that I didn’t have the money to build the other two. [Laughs.]

There you go.

That’s not something I thought of when the image came. They came as two walls. Their meaning is secondary and open to anyone’s interpretation. I did not intend it. These two walls are there. That’s how they came. That’s all.

That’s how people may choose to see these walls, but it is not attached to them. To me, these two walls simply denote the house. Frankly, the house would work without them. But I felt that you need something that anchors it. What I need to be very clear about, is that the house is not underground. I never build below ground. It is too expensive, risky for the workers, and requires too much insulation, among other things. I always build above ground and then come with the machine and berm it by placing earth on the roof and around the walls. So, the house is not buried – despite that everyone thinks it is. The house is bermed. It is covered by the earth like a blanket.

Sure, the site is so marvelous that it made perfect sense to have an opportunity to look at it from a higher point. But it is more like a gesture because, in reality, you don’t see much more if you climb 10 more metres. You can see the same view from below.

You are right. And did you know that one stair is designed to climb up and the other is for coming down? I hope they turned on the water that cascades down inside the wall grooves. The sound slowly dissipates as you ascend to the top, but it is very loud at the bottom. There are stainless steel handrails inside those grooves.

So far, everyone has come down safely.

They came from Jaén in Andalusia and were all from different houses. I got them from a place that sells remnants from demolitions. They must be at least 200 years old.

Exactly that. I keep my mouth closed and let the building speak. [Laughs.] It is true, the house must speak, not I. It is very austere, but it has a very strong presence.

No. I told you that I don’t work in that way. I don’t reason. I study a problem at hand, and I let it sit. Then, somehow, it solves itself. Sometimes it doesn’t. Images come, and the key is knowing how to sort good images from those that are not. I work intuitively. You can’t systematize an intuition. You can’t create a school based on intuition. That’s why I always refuse to participate in design juries. It is not my way.

Of course I do. But first, I wait for them to come. It is like a garment. Once you put it on a model, you have to make a lot of adjustments.

What do you mean? There are sofas, tables, and chairs. You see, everything I designed there is transparent. Well, you’ve been there.

That’s all intentional, and I designed the furniture specifically for this house. All the glass pieces were pre-cut and then glued onsite to avoid very risky transportation.

Felipe [Palomino, who worked at Ambasz’s New York office in the mid-90s and later returned to his hometown, Seville] and his family use the house. They spend some time there on weekends because they ride their horses on the property.

Never. I inhabit it mentally. I don’t have to be in the house to be in the house.

So other people could see what kind of house I imagined. And so that people would stop saying I was a paper architect.

I wanted to do it so that the house would have a life under the sun and not only in my head. I am the keeper of the image. The image must be given the embodiment.

Of course I did!

I was frightened! [Laughs.]