Tile | “A Door for My Parents” by Genoveva Carrión Ruiz, illustrated by Sergio Membrillas

BARCELONA — Architect Genoveva Carrión Ruiz and ceramic illustrator Sergio Membrillas worked together on a renovation of a gate. The property had been occupied by the architect’s parents for close to 25 years and both the gate, and its door, needed a replacement.

Ruiz told ArchDaily:

L’Eliana is a municipality near Valencia, which in the 1970s developed large housing estates on the outskirts. Carmen Ruiz Navarro and Clemente Carrión Mateu, my parents, have finished their house in plot No. 22 of Santiago Apóstol Street, and, 25 years later the entrance gate is broken and they need a new door. So then, a door for my parents with something else, of course.

The fence is practically a horizontal line. With the project there is an effort to generate, veils that will deform the fence until it becomes a foliated structure that shelters nuances and attends to the two situations that will be through it, the step walking and the step with a vehicle. The color refers to modernist and precious work, breaking with a canon of standardization through the recovery of another canon in disuse.

The architect goes into hardly any detail about the mural itself, so I’ll do it for him. The image depicts a mand and a woman who are both wholly consumed by their hobbies. The man has his nose buried in a book; the woman is concentrating on a clay vase. The rim of the man’s glasses peeking out over the top of the book is a great touch. One has to wonder if the characters are a reference to the architect’s parents. This personal detail would elevate the work from a nice favor to do for one’s family to a very touching gift. Ruiz’s parents are lucky.

Bill Rodgers is the Managing Editor of cfile.daily.

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