Diary 1969: Bernard Rudofsky’s personal account of his discovery of Frigiliana

Abstract

Abstract Bernard Rudofsky dedicated a significant part of his life to exploring a personal and fulfilling way of living, which was reflected in the numerous exhibitions and publications that he produced. Part of this research process was funneled into the various attempts to build a house for himself and his wife Berta, which concluded in the early seventies with the construction of La Casa in Frigiliana. This investigation reveals for the first time, from Rudofsky’s own account in one of his diaries, the challenges and mishaps that surrounded the discovery of the place and its subsequent acquisition by the couple. The article is an attempt to comprehensively reconstruct the couple’s ups and downs in Spain in 1969 by extracting and collating handwritten information from 144 pages of his diaries; information that has not been previously looked into. This article has a three-fold focus: firstly, that of the historical record of this unique event and the important role played by this construction in a biographical key; secondly, that of the meeting of the foreign architect with the Spain of the time, which allows us to imagine what other similar cases may have faced; finally, it is worth highlighting the uniqueness of a project process that includes the place in an intermediate stage and that highlights the intense relationship that exists in this particular case between the house, the environment, the user and designer, and living there.

Keywords

• bernard rudofsky
• la casa frigiliana
• diary
• inhabit