El dubte sempre m'ha semblat l'eina fonamental per entendre els problemes. El dubte m'ha servit per donar-me més seguretat a l'hora d'escollir. El dubte m'ha garantit que faria menys errors deguts a la precipitació. El dubte m'ha permès descobrir prejudicis i malentesos. El dubte m'ha ajudat a desconfiar de l'arrogància. El dubte m'ha permès tornar a començar amb més raons. I tinc el dubte raonable que els dubtes no sempre m'ha pogut ajudar. Però, això sí, mai no m'ha abandonat.Doubt has always appeared to me the key tool for understanding problems. Doubt has helped boost my confidence when it comes to choice. Doubt has ensured that I would make fewer mistakes due to haste. Doubt has enabled me to dicover prejudices and misunderstandings. Doubt has helped me mistrust arrogance. Doubt has allowed me to start again with ne w reasons. And I reasonably doubt whether doubts haven't always been able to help me. And yet, they have never abandoned me.La duda siempre me ha parecido el instrumento fundamental para entender los problemas. La duda me ha servido para darme más seguridad a la hora de elegir. La duda me ha garantizado que cometería menos errores debidos a la precipitación. La duda me ha permitido volver a empezar siempre con más razones. Y tengo la duda razonable de que las dudas no siempre me han podido ayudar. Pero, eso sí, nunca me han abandonado

Freixes, Dani

Temes de Disseny

Revistes Catalanes amb Accés Obert

Dani Freixes   Dudas razonables
31
Space theories
Representation
Domestic terrain
Experimental practices
Triple bottom line
Technology
Trends
Disposition
Distribution
Integral design
Interiority
Interactivity
Strategic habitat
Retail
Urban space
Rooms of the city
Delayering
Design
Light
New consumers
Occupation
Sociocultural
Atmosphere
Well-being
Work space
Dani Freixes is a member of Varis Arquitectes company, along 
with Eulàlia González and Vicenç Bou, and develops projects in 
the fields of architecture, public space, museography, interior 
design and ephemeral installations. Among the works he has 
created over the course of three decades are Zsa-Zsa cocktail 
bar and Seltz restaurant in Barcelona; the exhibitions entitled 
100 anys a Barcelona. Mariscal al Moll de la Fusta and El Dublín 
de James Joyce; the multimedia installations Tierra!!! and El 
món del Císter a Catalunya; the Museum of Music in Barcelona; 
and the Born Cultural Centre. He has been awarded the FAD 
prize on a number of occasions and the City of Barcelona Prize; 
the National Design Award, granted by the Spanish Ministry 
of Science, and the National Prize for Architecture and Public 
Space, granted by the Catalan government. At present he is 
working on the design of the Casteller Museum of Catalonia and 
the Studio Kids Museum in Barcelona.
“Interiors, however, are bereft 
of the values of thorough 
and complex design, often 
preferring market values: 
efficiency in production, 
economic competence and 
fashion”
Dani Freixes
Reasonable doubts
Our environment is certainly changing at a surprising speed and new demands 
are made of interior space designs so that their social responsibility may be met.
My doubts arise from the use of the knowledge we have, from how we adapt it to 
reality, from how we obtain it and from what part of it continues to be valid and 
what part needs revising. I’m not sure that vocation, craft and profession coin-
cide.I’m not sure who is referred to as a professional interior designer, whether 
someone who makes a living from this work or someone who in addition at-
tempts to improve reality while increasing his chances of understanding it. I was 
wondering whether society continues to demand this commitment as it used to, 
and whether we ourselves, sceptical that we will be able to influence this change 
or manage to understand what is going on, also demand it.
Architecture has lost the sense of interiority that justifies it, yet it has pre-
served the sense of exteriority that strengthens it and makes it transcendent and 
collective. Interiors, however, are bereft of the values of thorough and complex 
design, often preferring market values: efficiency in production, economic com-
petence and fashion. Little added value.
The evanescence of materials and the obsolescence of technology intrinsi-
cally transform spaces into bases for consumption and business. In my opinion, 
we should not forget that interiors are the heart of buildings, the part that makes 
them tick. Interiors turn spaces into places. All interiors, whether they be the 
places where we live, the shops where we buy, the restaurants where we eat, the 
venues where we enjoy ourselves, the offices where we work, the museums where 
Doubt has always appeared to me the key tool for 
understanding problems. Doubt has helped boost my 
confidence when it comes to choice. Doubt has ensured that 
I would make fewer mistakes due to haste. Doubt has enabled 
me to discover prejudices and misunderstandings. Doubt has 
helped me mistrust arrogance. Doubt has allowed me to start 
again with new reasons. And I reasonably doubt whether 
doubts haven’t always been able to help me. And yet, they 
have never abandoned me.
Authorship
Architecture
Project
Space Design
30 ELISAVA Temes de disseny
32 33
Spaces can be delimited by the edges that de-
fine them and by the conditions they embrace. 
Geometry helps us define these edges; choose 
their proportions, scale, size, axes, symmetry, 
rhythm, sequence and order. It helps us trace 
what is visible and drawable; what is objectively 
measurable. However, to ensure these edges 
make sense we need more than our sense of 
sight. We also need to formalise for others, and 
so we need to define the conditions they con-
tain: the sound of space, the feel of things, their 
smell; temperature, humidity, light and shad-
ows. These are conditions difficult to draw; con-
ditions that need to be defined in each project 
and are always relatively measurable. Nowadays 
all that which isn’t measurable isn’t quantifiable, 
and all that which isn’t quantifiable isn’t sell-
able. Square metres, heights, number of rooms, 
number of levels can all be sold; lights, shadows, 
pleasant textures or the right acoustics cannot. 
Spaces are now often born from a drawing in-
stead of a wish. In many cases the complexity 
is afforded by the drawing, not by the strategy 
of their growth or senescence, the complexity 
of their use or their response to people’s needs. 
Spaces should be desired first, and then drawn 
and defined.
De la Sota, distinguished Madrilenian architect 
of the mid-twentieth century, used to say he came up with his designs while out 
wandering. Once he was clear in his mind about what he wanted, he drew it on 
paper. He didn’t like to erase much and used drawing and geometry to arrange 
the complexity of his designs though not to define their concept or choose their 
material, which were decisions that he had taken earlier. ‘The sheet of paper will 
always be blank if one’s mind is blank’, a very good teacher of mine used to say. 
‘Fear of the blank page must replace fear of the blank mind’, he insisted.
A long time ago I designed the interior of a restaurant. Tete Montoliu, a pia-
nist of worldwide distinction who had a special gift on account of his blindness, 
showed me virtues and defects that were invisible to the eye. I had already been 
told of those that were visible by other colleagues. His senses could perceive 
a pleasant smell of food, an unpleasant noise in the diningroom, the fine tex-
ture of a tablecloth or of the wooden chairs, just as other diners unconsciously 
we keep and display our cultural heritage, or the exhibitions where we tell sto-
ries, need that tick.
Like children listening to tales, many people like to hear the same story re-
peated over and over, unchanged, in order to understand and remember it. Un-
derstand it because this gives them a sense of security, and remember it as a way 
of filling what is often a dissatisfied present. And many people feel the same 
way about spaces, more secure when they recognise and remember them. This 
explains why spaces are becoming increasingly more adaptable to repeatable 
models, which are a safer, quicker, cheaper and more effective bet. There are 
always some people, however, who like new stories, the risk and vertigo of the 
unknown, the need to explore and the irreplaceable feeling of discovery.
Leaving domestic interiors to one side, where the diversity of needs and propos-
als offers solutions that are much more realistic and innovative due to the new 
uses they are given, commercial spaces are suffering a wave of boundless mer-
cantilism. Today commercial spaces are places that aspire to loyalty to a brand 
image. Spaces have become supports for marketing thanks to graphic design, 
furniture, lighting and colour. Space becomes an excipient and places are chosen 
for their centrality, their size and obviously their price, although designs are 
only required to provide uniqueness as a driving force for business.
Interior designers are gradually becoming function installers who handle 
different elements. Can we still speak of auteur interior design? Well, that de-
pends on the notion of authorship. Few are the authors we can consider re-
sponsible for freely addressing problems and coming up with answers in their 
designs. More often than not, authors are chosen for their name, as in the case of 
fashion brands, rather than for their work, and spaces respond to identity needs 
rather than to real needs. 
It would be advisable for the market to pay greater attention to the intangi-
ble conditions of places. In point of fact they are only used to describe tangible 
spaces: sustainable, natural, handmade, dynamic, elegant or, to top it all, ‘design 
spaces’. Such descriptions are intended to provide recognition to mediocre or 
anonymous interiors. 
Perhaps we have lost some of the essential features we should strive not to forget. 
In interior spaces we eat, look, hear, touch and smell, and we experience pleasure, 
satisfaction, inconvenience and concern. When we design, we are making deci-
sions about things that address our senses. When we manage to satisfy them all 
we get a harmonious feeling we identify as comfort, a feeling that increases our 
well-being and which I consider to be a non-negotiable value in interior space.
I now see a number of interests that do not respond to these senses but to 
other requirements such as efficiency, security and economy. Anything that can 
be sold.
1 Dani Freixes, Vicente Miranda, Eulàlia González, Vicenç Bou,  
Hall of tales Felifonte Theme Park, Castellaneta Marina, Italy, 2003.
30 ELISAVA Temes de disseny
34 35
effort they put into their work to be wasted, will not enjoy designing and will 
experience no personal growth when they design. The ability to doubt, to take 
an unprejudiced glance at reality is most important of these approaches.
I can’t say whether I came to the world of interior design through architecture 
or whether I came to architecture through interior design. In any event, when 
I’ve had to work in each field I’ve started from the premise that my designs in 
both areas were formal contributions based on the need of being used, of being 
visible. This is what separates my designs from sculpture, although we should 
not scorn the possibility of the beauty offered by geometry or gesture. Life, how-
ever, must always prevail. We create spaces where loneliness and company can 
be administered to ensure we are not depressed when we are alone and are not 
weighed down if we have to share them.
Young people are informed and are continuously informing themselves; they 
broaden their knowledge but not their experiences, which they acquire when 
they put their knowledge into practice, knowledge that expires through lack of 
verification in reality. It is essential to introduce reality into design studies to 
ensure education in long-lasting fundamentals.
I would ask for a change in the syllabuses of schools business and economics; 
that we remember what money and business stand for (which is not what they 
stand for today); that we regard the material nature of the real world that de-
mands greater respect for time and effort. 
I would ask for greater ethical rigour in law studies; less laws, less bureau-
cratic rules and more wisdom to act fairly. And I would ask design schools to 
insist on finding meaning in decisions, to focus their reflection and action on 
people and to prioritise doubting time, the time we use to choose and analyse 
problems before trying to find the answers to them. Perhaps because a good 
design requires a good choice of the problems that are more in need of solving 
and that have more chances to be solved in a beautiful way.
Time for reasonable doubts.
perceived them.I think of him when I’m designing an interior. I try to pretend 
I’m blind and see other things. Once I’ve finished, I often overlook things. Our 
senses are very picky and at once very grateful. In such a ‘visualised’ world, 
filled with images and visual devices, our sense of sight takes on a dispropor-
tionate significance.
I couldn’t say how interiors should be designed, but I can think of one possi-
ble way to tackle them. Each one poses a new question and therefore requires a 
different answer. The ingredients I cook with are those I find in real life. My key 
allies, however, besides my student colleagues, have been and still are: 
light, the intangible nature of which makes it a flexible, expansible, mutating 
and spatially defining design material; 
colours, which are related to light;
geometry, apparent and virtual, as in mirror images that duplicate, expand 
and otherwise help me complete space, or else reveal other hidden spaces thanks 
to distinct or subtle reflections in glass; 
usage, that conditions my choice of materials; 
and time, that shapes their duration, for time is life and life has to be re-
flected in design.
What I consider most important, however, is the presence of people. There 
is no point in being an interior designer or any other number of jobs if you’re 
not interested in people—in what they need to do, in what they want to do, what 
they can do or what they dream of doing. It is hardly likely that anyone will find 
satisfaction in his work or that users will find satisfaction if this is not the case. 
I discovered this satisfaction at the school of architecture, 
where I was taught three approaches that would help me 
obtain it through looking, doubting and choosing. I 
learnt to look in order to understand the needs of my 
surroundings and their solutions, the range of questions 
and answers they elicited. To doubt, in order to test the 
validity of ideas, develop a critical sense and understand 
that one must face up to problems by admitting that what 
we knew or believed yesterday is of no further use. And 
to choose, which is in fact to decide and to act. This is the 
most transcendental and difficult moment, for it implies 
giving up good ideas or solutions that we want or like in favour of others that are 
better or more convenient. Life then went on to teach me to accept the outcome, 
which is always a mixture of successes and failures and feeds experience.
Those who don’t enjoy looking because they aren’t generally curious about 
people or things, those who feel annoyed at having to call their opinions into 
question, or those who can’t bear any of their thoughts to be lost or any of the 
Dani Freixes   Reasonable doubts
“I discovered the satisfaction 
in work at the school of 
architecture, where I was 
taught three approaches 
that would help me obtain 
it through looking, doubting 
and choosing”


Dudas razonables

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