Campo Baeza, Alberto

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Alberto Campo Baeza: 
Suspending Time 
16/05/2014 
An essay by Alberto Campo Baeza 
Burnt Norton is the first of the Four Quartets,1 one of T.S. Eliot’s key works. In its first five lines, the word 
“time” appears seven times with surprising reiteration: 
Time present and time past 
Are both perhaps present in time future. 
And time future contained in time past. 
If all time is eternally present 
All time is unredeemable. 
This metaphysical time that poets express so well is the same time that those of us dedicated to creation seek 
to capture. It is a central theme of architecture. 
In this text, I would like to analyze why some architectural spaces are able to stir up such an inner 
commotion within us, and insist this feeling is inextricably linked to the sensation suspended time at the 
intersection of beauty and truth. Although it may seem an abstract concept or theme more properly 
pertaining to poetry or philosophy, this suspension of time occurs with an especially palpable force only in 
architecture. When we stand before or inside of certain architectural spaces, time seems to stop, suspend 
itself, and become tangible to human beings. 
I can’t forget the profound emotion–the suspension of time–I felt the first time I entered the Roman 
Pantheon.2 I wept, and still shed tears every time I go back. I often mention to people the deal I’ve made 
with my students for many years now. When they visit the Pantheon they must have to send me a postcard, a 
“cartolina illustrata” with a picture of the inside, telling me whether or not they cried. All of those who 
have written have cried. I’ve amassed a good collection. 
 Neither can I forget how, when my building for the Caja Granada headquarters had just been inaugurated, 
one of the people who worked there wept when entering the central space for the first time. I must confess 
that, years later, every time I return there and enter that space, my heart still skips a beat, and even more so if 
the sun, up to its usual tricks, alights upon and strolls over its alabaster walls. 
These experiences exemplify, each in unique ways, the suspension of time that I’m speaking of here. 
As my career moves ahead, I still seek to deepen my understanding of the architectural mechanisms that 
make these results possible. I’m still trying to hit upon that perennially elusive “beauty itself” that every 
artistic creation seeks to embody, especially architecture since it is a form of high art. 
It might be helpful to consider how architecture, in comparison to other art forms, is the only one whose 
creations are capable of physically enveloping man, its protagonist. The experience of being able to stand 
inside a work of art in flesh and bone pertains solely to architecture, and is impossible to produce in the 
other arts. 
If a space built with gravity, with materials that possessing an unavoidable gravitational weight is tensed by 
light–light which itself builds time–so that we are moved through the physical, beyond the physical, then we 
can properly say that we have attained architecture. Architecture happens when we succeed in stopping time 
in the constructed space: entering within dreams-come-true. 
I will not tire of repeating that time is a central theme of architecture: time that is structured by light; capable 
of stopping our hearts or tying them in a knot, much more than the forms of a passing style or the exquisite 
adornments of the best construction. Utilitas and Firmitas only acquire their full meaning when Venustas is 
attained. 
  
 
THE TIME OF UTILITAS 
There is a time that refers to the capacity of making the function for which the building was erected endure. 
A time relative to function: use, utility, utilitas. Time of utilitas insists that a building carries out the 
functions for which it was commissioned and, moreover, that it be adaptable to different functions over the 
long haul. When I was a student we learned this in terms of the “architecture of boxes” and the “architecture 
of cases.” 
The case meets the requested function exactly, but it can’t be used for anything else. A knife sheath can’t be 
used for a spoon; nor is a spoon holder appropriate for knives. If the question is changed, the answer is no 
longer valid. It tends to happen when, in addition to the specific nature of the function, the dimensions are 
also strictly bound within certain settled parameters. A low income housing building, even if it is well-
resolved to the last millimeter, will most certainly not serve for anything else. 
The box, in contrast, can admit many different functions over time. Obviously, the larger the size of a space, 
the greater the number of different functions it can allow. Boxes endure the test of time better than cases do. 
Someone who wrote about my works said that all I do is make boxes, little boxes and big boxes. It only 
really sounds good in Spanish: cajas, cajitas y cajones. 
 
 
 
 
THE TIME OF FIRMITAS 
There is another time that speaks of physical duration, of the effective combination of materials that 
culminates in the most perfect construction of architecture. The word firmitas means strength, and a well-
constructed building will be able to last many years and will remain on solid footing for a long time. All of 
the great masters of the past have been, furthermore, very good builders whose attention to firmitas allows 
us to admire their words in flesh and blood today. 
THE TIME OF VENUSTAS 
The time of Venustas is that which can be suspended, that stops when we encounter the particular beauty of 
an artistic creation. It is the most difficult to control, but for that reason it is what most interests us. 
All of architecture’s treatise writers have sought to come up with a few universal rules that would not only 
serve to transmit certain forms or styles, but also emit a beauty always capable of moving men deeply. 
It’s a difficult enterprise. Just as happens with many excellent cookbooks in which nothing is spared to 
provide every last detail and consideration regarding a recipe, the exquisite dish still requires a skilled and 
passionate chef. No recipe can guarantee the quality of the cooking. The same thing is true in architecture; 
one has to have a talent for it. 
THE TIME OF MEMORY 
Another thing is the time that the building is capable of remaining in men’s memory: a built work’s 
resistance to oblivion, or better yet, the thing that secures its trajectory into architectural history, which has 
little to do with current fashion or passing fame. Those of us who are no longer children have seen lofty 
names and works that mean nothing today. The phenomenon, controlled and exaggerated by the press, still 
works at full strength. Many of the names that make up today’s architectural “A-List” are sure to disappear 
tomorrow, their fame short-lived. They will never remain in men’s memory. 
But there are other, quieter sorts of architecture that are much more eloquent and capable of transcending 
our tendency to ephemerality. Above and beyond fashion and vanity, our aim should be to erect more 
profound architecture for history. Such architecture has a different rhythm, and belongs to truth and beauty 
in fullest sense. 
The time of memory–of permanence–is the “difficult desire for duration” (le dur desir de durer) which Paul 
Eluard spoke of poetically and which is so profoundly rooted in the will of every creator: the will to 
transcend. 
HISTORY 
Few buildings in History hold the special capability of causing us to lose our sense of time. 
The Roman Pantheon2 is the example par excellence. Well built, and a perfect embodiment of the universal 
function endowed to it by its creator, the Pantheon is also overwhelmingly beautiful. All of the great creators 
have understood that when they’ve been inside of it. Suffice it to quote Henry James when he recounts the 
memorable scene of Count Valerii kneeling inside the Pantheon with only moonlight and with rainwater 
making the light from on high material. 
And if I had to give just one example of contemporary architecture, I would recommend visiting the Burgo 
Tower by Eduardo Souto de Moura in Oporto. Not only is it impeccable in its function and its construction, 
but also in its radical beauty. Going in, out, and through it, and I speak from my own experience, is like 
escaping from time. This building clearly reflects its historical period, the third millennium live in today. 
Thus, I must insist that we, living architects, remember that it is possible to stop time with our hands, as 
Josiah did with the sun, and in the current example, with great formal restraint. 
THE BLUE-EYED ROTHKO3 
Every time I enter the Olnick Spanu family home in Manhattan my heart skips a beat: there in front of me, I 
see a painting by Rothko, my favorite painter, in an unusual size and color. Its small dimensions and blue 
and green tones completely sweep me away. A good friend of mine, with whom I often discuss this painting, 
tells me it is “the blue-eyed Rothko.” He’s right. I can witness to the fact that there, in front of this 
wonderful painting, time stops, it disappears. 
It happens that painting, like architecture, shares this special capacity to carry us away and suspend time. I’ll 
never forget my first visit to London when, with Sáenz de Oíza, my beloved teacher and Spanish master, we 
stood in front of Velázquez’s Venus of the Mirror in the National Gallery. Time, space, desire–everything–
disappeared. In that brief infinite lapse we stood as if in divine rapture 
MUSIC CAPABLE OF STOPPING TIME 
I was shaken when, having almost completed this essay, the words “suspended time” sounded clear and 
strong in the air. They were spoken by Peter Phillips, director of The Tallis Scholars, Saturday, April 2, 
2011, in an interview he gave before performing Tomás Luis de Victoria’s Requiem4 with his group in the 
packed church of St. Mary the Virgin in Midtown, Manhattan. 
In that interview, the words flowed from his mouth as if in a cascade: intensity, sobriety, profundity, 
precision, simplicity, clarity, but above all, suspension, referring to time. Additionally, when asked where 
The Tallis Scholars had sounded best, he answered in the Sydney Opera House, by the master Jorn Utzon: a 
gift. 
The concert, devoted entirely to Tomás Luis de Victoria, and commemorating the fourth centenary of his 
death, was long, but I would say that for all of us who filled that church in New York, everything happened 
in a second. Time stopped there, in the way that only beauty can make possible. 
Of course, if I had to bring a contemporary musician there, I’d bring Martynov, the contemporary Russian 
composer, and author of Come In5. You need only to hear this music to understand at once what I’m talking 
about. 
 SORT OF DISAPPEAR 
And while we could survey all artistic creations and discover that the crux of the matter is always the same, 
namely reaching man’s heart through his head, I am going to limit myself to a couple of examples of how 
film, the seventh art, is also capable of stopping time. 
An unforgettable scene comes to mind: the white plastic bag floating in the air in the film American Beauty6. 
Sam Mendes magically transforms something so basic from a novel into a masterful visual piece. Given the 
supreme beauty of something so simple, we all cry with Wes Benly and Thora Birch. There, time disappears 
and our heart dissolves in five infinite minutes. 
Of course, Billy Elliot7 expresses it still more clearly in that “sort of disappear” that he repeats twice when 
the panel asks him what it is that he feels when he dances. This attainable “sort of disappear” is the time I’m 
talking about when I propose suspended time. Stephen Daldry summed up something as abstract as 
suspended time in artistic creation so precisely in this beautiful little phrase! 
THE SECRET OF ARTISTIC CREATION 
Architecture, painting, literature, music, and film are, in fact, no more than the creative works of human 
beings which redeem us and make this life worth living. 
Our works go on to “transcend material and limited life.” Stefan Zweig, in that essential text I have quoted 
so very often, The Secret of Artistic Creation, manifests this with such force: “there is no greater pleasure or 
satisfaction than recognizing that man is also capable of creating everlasting values.” 
Works that are worthwhile transcend us; they transcend their creators and no longer belong to us. They 
already belong to the memory of men. 
 
ADDENDA 
I began this text recalling the capacity of the Caja Granada’s central space8 to move us. For obvious reasons 
of modesty, I will only make a brief commentary on my works in relation to this suspension of time. While 
this suspending time is one of the final purposes of architecture, I also know that I am trying to explain 
something that is beyond expression. 
If one can speak of the profound impact of seeing the palpable light on the alabaster of the Caja Granada, I 
would describe what we feel when we walk through the extremely white ramp of the Museum of Memory of 
Andalusia, also in Granada next to the Caja, as luminous wonder. It is a moving promenade architecturale 
that I believe is indeed worthwhile. 
In my houses, however, the sensations very diverse: quiet calm in Gaspar House and Guerrero House, turned 
in upon their white courtyards; serene transparency at rest in nature, looking down from their podiums 
towards sought after peace in De Blas House in Madrid, the Olnick Spanu House in New York, and Rufo 
House in Toledo. 
Other projects produce feelings of yet another kind. In the building we are finishing for the Advisory 
Council of the Regional Government of Castilla-León, in front of the Cathedral of Zamora, a box of 
powerful sandstone walls opens to the sky, and we are stunned before the extreme delicacy of the glass box 
constructed within it. The trees in the garden that were there before, now recovered, serve as an effective 
counterpoint and are reflected, looking at themselves, in the mirror of the large plates of glass. 
It is a similar operation to what I did years ago in Mallorca with the BIT Center9. The marés stone box 
enclosed an ordered plot of alternating orange trees and white pillars which complimented a simple slab that 
protects the basic glass box. Both of the “hortus conclusus” projects, Zamora and Mallorca, strike us 
through the powerful contrast between the primitive stone walls and the intelligently deployed advanced 
technology. Both buildings, Zamora and Mallorca, moreover, lead us to an eloquent silence of 
contemplation. 
If I were asked to divulge my trick or recipe, I’d say I have none. I manage to throw myself with my head 
and heart into each job I do, dedicating an enormous amount of time–thousands of hours–to each project. I 
want each of my works to unfold in the light of truth always, knowing, as we already knew, that beauty is 
the splendor of truth. John Keats beautifully encapsulates this metaphysical recipe in the conclusion to his 
Ode to a Grecian Urn: “Truth is beauty, beauty truth. That is all.” 
Not long ago I discovered that Paul A.M. Dirac, 1933 Nobel Laureate and one of the great physicists of our 
time, proclaimed, “Beauty and truth go together in theoretical physics.” Could today’s architects, instead of 
musing on vanities, concur with the poets, philosophers, and physicists in the primacy of the pursuit of truth, 
and attempt to actualize this all-too-possible miracle of the suspension of time? 
Le Corbusier, in simpler language, spoke of the “unspeakable space,” and on other occasions, of how the 
most “useful” buildings were those that “fulfilled the desires of the heart.” The master was so very right. 
And if we started with a poet, T.S. Eliot, we will conclude with another, William Blake. In his Auguries of 
Innocenc10 he proposes: 
To see a world in a grain of sand, 
And a heaven in a wild flower, 
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 
And eternity in an hour. 
Well, eternity is what we would like to achieve with our architecture. 
NOTES INDEX 
           1 Burnt Norton. Four Quartets. T.S. Eliot. 
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xDpueV1U8k 
2 Green, Blue, Green on Blue. Mark Rothko 
        http://www.globalgallery.com/enlarge/24068/ 
3 Pantheon. 
         http://www.monolithic.com/stories/the-pantheon-rome-126-ad 
 4 Tallis Scholar. Requiem. Tomas Luis de Victoria. 
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1cV0hqJ95Y&feature=related 
 5 Ensemble Opus Posth - Come In! Vladimir Martynov. 
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q8_M12mW6Q 
 6 American Beauty. The white plastic bag. Sam Mendes. 
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yfpPpu7bik 
 7 Billy Elliot. Sort of disappear. Stephen Daldry. 
        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0tTT_87Hh8&feature=watch_response 
 8 Caja Granada Savings Bank. Alberto Campo Baeza. 
         http://www.flickr.com/photos/campobaeza/442162119/in/set-72157600040292822/ 
 9 BIT Center in Mallorca. Alberto Campo Baeza. 
          http://www.flickr.com/photos/campobaeza/462871059/in/set-72157600086044649/ 
 10 Auguries of Innocence. William Blake. 
                       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi848QqLbdo&feature=related 
  
 


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