Quim Larrea. Design theorist. Cordoba, 1957

I must admit that at first I had opted for the headword “humility”; however, having thought about it at length, I’ll go for “modesty”. / All of us have a past which supplies our memory store. As I write, my mind goes back to one Padre Cortés, a Jesuit who, having spent most of his life in India, was conveniently transferred to Barcelona on retirement; Cortés was given the task of putting grammar into the heads of us green kids whose only thought was football and wishing we had co-ed classes. / Of all the valiant efforts he made to teach me something, one lesson was to make a lasting impression on me; during a class essay correcting session he said in his impassive voice: “Larrea, avoid superlatives, can’t you see that they are immodest?” Such was the impact that since that day no superlative has entered my writing. / It took some time before I unravelled the enigma of the priest’s words. What had superlatives to do with modesty, I asked myself. In time I reached a conclusion, a conclusion of course which I never had time to confirm with the old teacher: if a qualifying adjective becomes a superlative, we are evaluating the subject matter as extraordinary, we become judges assigning qualities of magnificence, and we distance ourselves from the mere mortals to whom we convey this marvellous discovery. We are also transmitting to them the message that we occupy a privileged position. / This, then, was the immodesty which the elderly Jesuit had attributed to me. / Let’s now talk about modesty. Let’s say that someone has designed thousands upon thousands of square metres of space, has created his own universe of things, has written and published books which just happen to be about himself, and has established a Foundation which bears his own name (the complete version thereof). This character lives in a house which he himself has designed and which also serves as his workplace, surrounded by the paintings he paints and collects, eating the marvellous food prepared by his wife, amidst the pleasures and amenities that he most enjoys and two great dogs that he himself has chosen with the greatest of care. / In this setting, can we talk of modesty? Personally, I think we can, since modesty is the “virtue which moderates, tempers and regulates external actions, containing the man in the limits of his state, as is convenient to him”. Let there be no doubt, we are faced with a modest person.
P.S. Oh, yes! I mentioned at the start of this text that I had decided not to use the word “humility”, but now I must admit that I enjoy contradicting myself: Oscar is only humble when he learns.