Exhibition “Ximo Sanchís. Architect’s drawings”.

9 Mar 2023 | 12.30h | ETSA Exhibition Hall

How these drawings have been made

Many of the drawings you can see here, are made remembering or memorizing architectures of buildings in places of the Valencian territory, always linked to my personal biography and lived time.

But they don’t want to be personal, eccentric and strambolic manias… They want to have clear reasons for understanding and understanding between us. They are drawings inside that country of a long-lasting condition and at sea… inside the villages or in the suburbs and peripheries of the cities, inside our historical moment and our economic, agrarian and industrial structure nowadays late-capitalist and digital…

Yes: now we have a type of disorder that I believe is a real destruction of the territory and landscape. “The Valencian territorial development is a calamity” as Vicent Garcia says in special reference to the coast of Alicante… Disaster in the cities and towns… Because we have been present, we have assisted and we have seen the real defeat of the country, of its roads, of its cultivated fields, to see the disappearance of its structure of towns and cities, of its workshops and industrial factories, of its impossible modernity and rational organization… Coast of sea and mountains full of built-up agglomerations, of towers and villas, where the whole geography has become unrecognizable from that country of Cavanilles and other ancients…

It is worth thinking that architects are the factotum of a world that has been senselessly destroyed. Now we look at the enigmatic future with little hope and a certain dread…

 X. S.

Ximo Sanchis Serrano (l’Alcúdia, 1946) studied architecture in Madrid with Antonio Fernández Alba, graduating in Valencia (1974), where he followed the courses of Tomàs Llorens and was assistant professor of projects. As municipal architect of Xàtiva (1980-1985) he was responsible for the restoration of the old Banco de Espanya as a museum of the city (1981), the Fruit and Vegetable Market (1982) and the restoration of the Santa Anna dels Borja chapel (1982). He designed the open-air pavilion for the exhibition of the 750th anniversary of the conquest of the city of Valencia (1989). Under the direction of Alfons Roig, in 1982 he restored the Llutxent chapel as a residence for artists. He has developed his career forming a professional team with José Murcia and Vicent Garcia, with whom he has realized, among others, the health centers of Alginet (1989) and l’Alcúdia (1991), the square of the Torre del Consell de Dénia (1976) after winning the competition organized by the city council, and together with E. Giménez and C. Salvadors the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM) (1987). He is the author (with A. Calça, F. Pina and R. Simó) of the Jardins de la Casa de la Sénia and the Carretera a l’Alcúdia (1982 and 1988). Together with Miquel Benito, he has carried out the Serradora health center (I and II) (1994) and the one in the Plaça de Segòvia (1996), both in Valencia. In collaboration with the same architect, he has designed the Institut de Formació Professional Joanot Martorell and the Institut de la Ciutat de l’Aprenent a València (2002). Among other writings and articles he has publishedArchitecture and construction details (ETSAV-UPV, Valencia 1998), including his participation in the course “Arquitectura al detalle” (ETSAV-UPV and COACV, 1997).