® Cristina Gon / Roland Halbe

Building abroad lays bare the dual nature of our work as architects; duality in questions both immaterial and material, irrational and rational, in both design and construction. On the one hand, during the time of design, the input of experience, knowledge, and also intuition gives the architectural space a non-material form, adjusts it to a particular scale, and then integrates it into a context; here lies the very essence of architecture. But during the time of construction, what bestows materiality on the building project is that which can be measured and quantified.

This continuity between design time and construction time – which we have so far been able to achieve when building here at home – gets disrupted when we work in other countries, not so much on account of physical distance as because there, full control of the process is not in our hands. This is the main difference: in Spain, the architect directs the project and takes responsibility for it; elsewhere, in contrast, we have to work with local professionals who have been tasked to oversee our work, and to them we must pass on all the key points of our project...[+]