Basic Info

Name: Javier Seguí de la Riva
Country of Origin: ES

Description

Javier Seguí de la Riva is considered a key player in the University of Madrid’s Computer Center (CCUM), one of the few places of creative freedom tolerated under the Franco dictatorship. The experimental space, developed and funded by IBM, operated from 1968 to 1982 and brought together architects, engineers, philosophers, poets, painters, and others to explore the “language of machines” and the forms of creation made possible by automatic calculations. Many of Seguí de la Riva’s works were carried out in collaboration with Ana Buenaventura. The architect was particularly interested in defining primary and basic modules, from which he sought to develop his architecture, as demonstrated in his formal collages composed of habitable units. He was inspired by computational research on the concept of spatial unity conducted by Ian Moore and Neville Longbone. The definition of these units was later used to study social behavior.

The introduction of computers into the creative process has enabled the development of artistic and architectural operating systems by identifying basic units, as well as rules for the emergence and formalization of the processes themselves. Javier Seguí de la Riva and Ana Buenaventura’s research at the Computer Center of the University of Madrid (CCUM), from 1968 to 1974, sought to reveal a series of architectural organizations before subjecting them to a process of transformation.

Javier Seguí de la Riva has participated in more than fifty exhibitions and his work is part of the collections of IBM (Madrid), Goethe Institute (Munich, Germany), OMEGA Centenario (Frankfurt, Germany), Klariasa Gallery (Germany), Architecture and Computer Science Laboratory, M.I.T. (U.S.A.), ZKM Museum, Reina Sofía Museum (Madrid) and various private collections.