Have you ever been curious about how architects work in their studios? Usually off-limits to the public, these spaces hold stories and dreams within their walls—completed projects, upcoming buildings, proudly won competitions, and unrealized ideas. Fortunately, the new book “Ambientes de Arquitectura” (Architectural Environments) by Bisman Ediciones opens the doors to 50 architecture studios, allowing us to explore their spaces. Ping-pong tables, mate, and scale models: discover how architects really work!
“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph them in black and white, you photograph their souls,” Ted Grant once said. The lens of Albano García undoubtedly does justice to this quote, capturing the very essence of these studios.
Freezing time and space, García captures the states of mind that often accompany the architectural profession: anxiety, happiness, chaos, and serenity. Testa, del Puerto-Sardín, MSGSSS, Galpón Estudio, BAAG, Monoblock, Planta, and adamo-faiden are just some of the selected studios.
With texts by Edgardo C. Freysselinard, the book breaks down the walls of the most iconic offices in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, bringing us closer to the noble profession we call architecture.
The exhibition accompanying the book is on display until June 23 at the Fototeca Latinoamericana (FoLA), located at Godoy Cruz 2626, Palermo.
Discover “Ambientes de Arquitectura” in the words of its creators.
Architects, Their Workspaces, and Their Dreams / Hernán Bisman
1. Clorindo Testa. Like many other major projects in our lives as publishers, this book was born—without us realizing it at the time—in Clorindo's studio. It was the spring of 2012, and we were working with him and an enthusiastic team of curators on an entry for the Venice Biennale. We decided to ask Albano García, a remarkable architectural photographer, to join us that day with his camera, and my partner, Pablo Engelman, to bring his recorder. We wanted to document one of those weekly work meetings—which were true masterclasses with the maestro—among the sketches, plans, scale models, structural props, and artworks that filled every corner of his beloved and beautiful studio on the corner of Santa Fe and Callao avenues.
When Albano showed us the photos a few days later, we were deeply impressed. The images perfectly captured the spirit and elements that made this architecture studio everyone's favorite—the place we always wanted to visit, no matter the excuse.
We published some of those photos in the catalog for that Biennale entry. Later, with great sadness, we published one of them again alongside part of the conversation Pablo recorded that day, as a farewell to Clorindo. We still miss him deeply, especially whenever we pass by that iconic corner of our city—iconic precisely because he once inhabited it.
2. Ambientes de arquitectura. More than six years passed, with many books, magazines, and documents published, yet those intimate photos—playful in how they revealed hidden corners of that mythical studio—constantly came back to me. Then, on a Sunday afternoon at home just over a year ago, while browsing through a beautiful book of photographs of writers in their workspaces that we found in a small secondhand bookstore, I reminded my wife, Clarisa, of the images Albano had taken of Clorindo. I pointed out how similar their atmosphere was to the book we were looking at. Eureka! Clarisa suggested publishing a book that would “peer” inside Buenos Aires architecture studios—a book documenting the environments where architecture is imagined, designed, and documented. These are spaces we know intimately from our twenty years as publishers, but they spark great curiosity in those who cannot normally access them.
I got to work that very Sunday. Using WhatsApp, I started a group chat with Pablo Engelman, Albano García, and Edgardo “Chester” Freysselinard—author of an interesting book we had published shortly before—to share the idea and see if they would be excited to take on the painstaking process of selecting, photographing, and writing about 50 studios. This seemed like the right number to produce, within a reasonable timeframe, a book representative of how different generations of architects work. As they had so many times before, and with their characteristic generosity, all three happily joined the project, swept up in the excitement without even knowing if the book would ever be published. This shared enthusiasm and joy made working on the project an absolute pleasure. Months later, the talented Jorge Denis joined as literary editor, along with Marco Maiulini as a meticulous copy editor, both adding their expertise and passion to the pages of this book.
That autumn day in 2018 marked the beginning of many months of work, starting with selecting fifty “Architectural Environments” out of hundreds, or rather thousands, of possibilities. We knew any selection would be partial, perhaps even unfair. We therefore decided to choose in the most honest way we could imagine—by affinity. We selected studios we had already visited or collaborated with on other photographic, literary, or publishing projects. These were offices we knew from experience would interest readers for various reasons, and where Albano's camera and Chester's recorder would be warmly welcomed.
We limited ourselves to selecting studios within the borders of the City of Buenos Aires, an area we know like the back of our hand. However, as the list grew, we couldn't resist extending our reach slightly to the north and west, just past General Paz Avenue. Even so, we decided to stay within the limits of the Greater Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (AMBA), leaving a selection of “Architectural Environments” in La Plata, Mar del Plata, Rosario, or Córdoba, among other Argentine cities, for future volumes.
3. The book. It took us a year to document the fifty selected studios. This intensive effort—with Albano styling and photographing each space, and Chester visiting them all to observe and talk onsite about the magic of each office, later writing brief snapshots of these conversations—was complemented by meticulous editing and layout work by our editorial team. Midway through the process, support from the Ministry of Culture of the City of Buenos Aires, the Tejido Urbano Foundation, and companies like Horcrisa, Rehau, Knauf, Agi, and Desalvo allowed us to print a substantial run. Following its launch at the Fototeca Latinoamericana (FoLA), the book will be distributed to the participating studios, cultural and professional institutions, specialized libraries, and bookstores.
After considering several options, we chose to publish the photo sessions in virtually the exact chronological order in which they were taken. The journey begins with a visit to the studio of Daniel Silberfaden—our first host, a dear friend and the happy occupant of a semi-circular office bathed in magical light—and ends with a studio photographed twelve months later: the modern workspace of architects Adamo and Faiden. Between these two, readers will discover a rich diversity of architectural spaces. Different working styles yield distinct aesthetics, spatial configurations, more or less sophisticated furniture and libraries, workshops, and offices, all providing context for these creators. Architects, consultants, students, and interns work day in and day out in these extraordinary, versatile, symbolic, ceremonial, or playful environments—true laboratories for ideas that will later become initial sketches, schematic designs, and construction documents used to build the structures and cities we live in.
The group chat among friends that started this book remains open and highly active. Its digital history preserves everything we saw, recorded, and discussed over these two years. It is a universe filled with paper, scale rulers, tracing paper, whiteboards, screens, pencils, and pens that accompany and define the protagonists of this publication: architects, their drawings, and their dreams, the tenacious inhabitants of the wonderful spaces documented in this book.
Welcome!
This article was written by Mariana Etulain. The translation is powered by AI.
