La tríada moderna de Villanueva. El equilibrio como teoría arquitectónica

In 1964, still without the necessary historical perspective, the German author Sibyl Moholy-Nagy al-
ready explained in the first book published on the work of Villanueva, how his career drew a continuous
line from the Renaissance traditions up to modernity. Following this hypothesis, it is possible to trace
up to his last works –posterior to the book-, that line that comes from the baggage assimilated by the
Ecole de Beaux-Arts from the classical world, and which ends by updating its own humanism under the
impact of the sociological, technological and aesthetic changes of the 20th century.
His discourse was marked by this preponderance of what is human, leaving what is formal -unavoi-
dable aspect of modernity-, mitigated by the urgency and severity of the enormous task he assumed
from his position as public architect. However, this verbalization does not prevent one from verifying in
its modern work the synthetic action of the architect, his own artistry.
Little given to theorization, he always explained his work from principles. For Villanueva, the most suc-
cinct way of expressing the architectural fact, from Vitruvius and throughout history, was still the classic
triad: Utilitas, Firmitas, Venustas. Modernizing the terms in a language appropriate with contemporary
thought he would talk of the function or programme rather than the convenience or usefulness; of the
structure or the means of construction instead of the robustness; and of the form or space in substitu-
tion of the aesthetics.
Nevertheless Villanueva felt it necessary to add the principles of economy and prefabrication. The
second is a precision of the Firmitas and the first, being transversal, is intrinsically linked to functionality.
The economy, by definition, has to do with the effectiveness (performance), rationality (reflection) and
containment (control) in the use of resources. Principles, as stated above, linked to his practice from
his public position,
and that would end up defining his modern work: functional economy in the versatility of the spaces,
structural economy in the paucity and constructive rigor and formal economy in the basic volumes.
The strength, the meaning and even the contemporary justification to rescue and
update the Vitruvian formula resided in the fact that Roman architects placed “Comfort” in the top
vertex. Ensuring the functionality of the building, and using it as a generator of form, architecture will
inevitably reach Vitruvian harmony. A balance only orchestrated by the architect and his/her mastery
of the form.