GUILLERMO ARANDA-MENA

I am visiting my parents in the same house where I grew up. Browsing through some of my things I found a sketchbook, a present I received in December, 2000. Many of the drawings and sketches I created in it are dated early 2001, year of fond memories and certainly survived all the hype and non-sense of the year Y2K! If looking at the futuristic scenes of Kubrick's 2001: A  Space Odyssey (1968, released before the moon landing) ... one can only look at it as an outdated film esp. as the future is no longer what it used to be!  I simply feel that our lives have certainly taken no a space but a  spatial odyssey! Somehow Kubrik's film still resonates in my mind, in particular "that open ending to interpretation" (way beyond any french's wildest dreams) and in particular that scene of the embryonic "Starchild"  aperance just before the abrupt ending... it might have all been a de-ja vu of my own existence. ... if this is not enough, we are also celebratin...

GuillermoAranda-Mena 2019

October’s Blogpost is dedicated to the great Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472). Here a random selection of buildings and environments I have encountered in recent years... I wonder what would you have thought of them? All I can say is that I have enjoyed many of his buildings, drawings and thoughts - 500 years later that is to say. Guillermo Aranda-Mena Leon Battista Alberti was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man. Born: 14 February 1404, Genoa, Italy Died: 25 April 1472, Rome, Italy Built work: Santa Maria Novella, Palazzo Rucellai, Basilica di Santa Andrea in Mantova, Tempio di San Sebastiano in Mantova just to mention a few.  Known for: Architecture, Linguistics, Poetry Zacatecas, México "A man can do all things if he but wills them." Manchester, England "When I investigate and when I discover that the forces of the heavens and the planets are...

Rilke, en unda carta a Clara Rilke, escribe: " Las obras de arte nacen siempre de quien ha afrontado el peligro, de quien ha ido hasta el extremo de una experiencia, hasta el punto que ningún humano puede rebasar. Cuanto más se ve, más propia, más personal, más única se hace una vida."  "Esta especie de extravío que no es propio, debe insertarse en nuestro trabajo".  "El exceso de espacio nos asfixia mucho mas que su escasez" Pg. 206. Dialtéctica de lo de dentro y de lo de fuera. Poética del Espacio, Gaston Bachalard. Una de las máximas de educación práctica que han dominado mi adolescencia: "Mando de hierro con guante de terciopelo". Guillermo Aranda-Mena©2020

In this blog I show some images of the bed I designed and built with beautiful tasmanian oak. The inspiration was a little outrigger boat that my sister gave to me when we sailed in Fiji some 10 years ago or so. Bula! Guillermo Furniture: King size bed built with Tasmanian oak.  Organic cotton matters and linen.  Design inspiration: Fijian traditional Outrigger boat. The bed is a king size and the outriggers became discrete shelving units. In this blogpost it seems appropriate to bring some of the great Georges Perec’s reflections from “Species of Spaces and other pieces”... the one titled: The Bed. “ We spend more than a third of our lives in bed. The bed is one of the rare places where we adopt roughly speaking a horizontal posture. The others are much more specialised: operating table, bench in a sauna, chaise-langue, beach, psychoanalyst couch ....  Techniques of sleeping: the idea of lying down is something natural ...