I discovered the unrepeatable character of Fernando Higueras in the mid- 1960s, at a Pequeño Congreso. For the Catalonians, trained in the discipline of architectural rationality and discretion- the well-known realist architecture concerned with 'instalments' and with illustrating everything with Rotring 0.2 -, Fernando's interventions in those sorely missed Little Congresses, which brought together the most prestigious architects in the Peninsula, were the most amazing happenings. The words that accompanied his slides were not at all pretentious, rather they were quite prosaic: "Here is where the kitchens go, and here, just like that, the living room and I'll double them symmetrically here, and so I'll have less work to do. That's the advantage of working with radial symmetries... " And then, all of a sudden, the Crown of thorns, as unfinished as the project itself, came up in a wonderful drawing by Antoñito López, "this century greatest painter" stated Fernando very firmly. From his absolute and ironical perplexity at our pretentious approach to structuralism - we even invited Peter Eisenman right in the heart of Chomsky fever, and we had the crazy idea of doing the same with Jacques Derrida - to his brilliant guitar playing after dinner, we found it all very confusing. Despite his rejection by the gurus of the School of Barcelona, some of us - Emili Donato, Ricardo Bofill and myself - found him absolutely fascinating.

I still think that Fernando Higueras was one of the greatest last century Spanish architects but, in light of the sparse coverage of his sudden and untimely death, I don't think there are many more architects who do, even though I have the feeling that this will change very soon and that this exhibition will be decisive for that. Fernando was always tremendously controversial but, in his youth, he lived a golden age of fame and universal acknowledgement. These were the years when he was invited to the most prestigious tenders, magnificent photography books were published in Japan about his work, and he almost won the Pritzker Prize. But time went by and, for various reasons, among which we could include the frivolity and volatility of fashion in contemporary architecture, he was relegated to the role of a picturesque character, pleasant but excessive and conflictive, an artist of fleeting brilliance. His talent, the overwhelming beauty of the work of his youth, his sudden rise and his uncontrolled life of excess and waste, all remind me of Scott Fitzgerald.

Among the new Catalonian architects who still appreciate him I would like to recall two of the most significant, apparently very remote but, knowing them, I never found them so distant. One of them, that I have already mentioned, is Ricardo Bofill, who met Fernando when he was very young and always held his overflowing talent in great esteem. Some years ago, at a congress, he even said that Fernando was the most wasted talent in Spanish architecture. Another admirer was Enric Miralles, unfortunately deceased. To my great surprise, when I dared to praise Fernando's genius in his presence - convinced that such a comment would be seen as an old-fashioned and nostalgic boutade so typical of me-, Enric said I was understating it and went on to analyse various of Fernando’s projects with great enthusiasm, showing that his knowledge about them was indeed profound.

As I said before, I still think that Fernando was one of the most brilliant Spanish architects, and probably the most complete in the whole world. Complete because he resolved a multitude of architectural programs with huge talent and originality. His isolated houses were extraordinary right from the start; the series of economical houses in Hortaleza, original because of their reasonability; the high-budget block of apartments in Madrid, spectacular; the hotel in Lanzarote was the best example of tourist architecture in the country and possibly in the world; his town planning ideas for the same island were visionary; the tender in Monte Carlo, simply amazing... Almost all architects today focus on programs where they can really stand out - museums, auditoriums, office skyscrapers - and ignore most conflictive programs such as collective low-cost housing. Fernando took everything on and did so with incredible creativity. He did, of course, just like some of us

- those who were trained under José Antonio Coderch or Paco Sáenz de Oíza- have a conception of architecture that today is totally out of date. This was evident when he told me that the extension to the Museo Reina Sofía by Jean Nouvel was a very bad idea, since the noise of the traffic on the road next to it echoed in the unnecessary and huge cantilevered roof, and invaded the patio, making it uninhabitable. While in the gardened patio of the old hospital was all peace and quiet, nobody wanted to stay for even a minute in the tasteless of the extension. The fact that the criticism of a building was based on acoustic comfort, which you can't see on photographs - and architecture today is judged and valued solely on photographs -, gave me a kind of Proustian feeling. I hadn't heard reasoning as profound as this for years. I have to admit, Fernando, that we are relics from an obsolete moral architectural age.

Only the complex and scandalous personality of this huge artist can explain why he was so ignored towards the end of his life. It is true that he consumed his life in excessive intensity. But that was just what Fernando was like; excessive in everything, in his talent as an architect and also as a sketcher, painter and guitar player, in friendship and enmity, in his likes and phobias, in his addictions, in his love for women... In everything. 

In these times of control and political correctness, we miss Fernando's lack of control and 'incorrectness' all the more.