Lago y Sáen

Manuel Lago (Popayán, 1932) and Jaime Sáenz (Cali, 1932) once they completed their training as architects at Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame, respectively, returned to Cali to associate and create the firm Lago & Sáenz and thus configure one of the most outstanding and active architecture firms in the country, whose projects quickly achieved recognition in international publications. The book through beautiful photographs, a large amount of unpublished documentary material and the expressive force of the drawings and sketches, exposes the evolution of an emblematic firm in modern Colombian architecture and shows its exploration of matter and space in the opposition of qualities: full-empty; weight-lightness; natural-artificial, to highlight the conditions of the landscape through elementary volumes with constructive honesty. It also exalts the use of emptiness as a means to establish and intensify the relationships of buildings with the immediate environment through the construction of urban, public and open spaces of a collective nature. This book also allows a simultaneous and interpretive reading of the work carried out by Lago & Sáenz and constitutes a true contribution to cultural history, going beyond the critical assessment and traditional historiography of architecture, and addressing the context of the professional, academic, artistic, economic and social networks in which their works are produced.