Rafael Guastavino

I commenced work in , beginning with my own private residence... as a physician might try his own medicine, carrying out my ideas by building a construction four stories in height, practically with no beams, using clay and cement.

[F]irst attempts... were... in simple concrete. But I soon found that no arch work could be done with concrete... so well as it could be accomplished with s... laid in , if the material and process are well adjusted.

Hence I understood why my... professor... D. Juan Terras, said one day : "The architect of the future will construct by imitating nature.., the most rational, durable and economical method."

I became convinced that there was much to learn from the immense book called Nature, never enough studied, and that our ordinary system of construction was very poor, notwithstanding that we possessed the material... that enabled us to …

The thought entered my mind... that all this colossal space was covered by a single piece, forming a solid mass of walls, foundation and roof, and was constructed with no centres or , and especially, without the necessity of carrying …

I had just left , after completing some buildings, among them the large manufactories of Batllo Brothers, and was under the impression that I had accomplished something... according to the Cohesive System; but with this great specimen of …

covered by the fall of the full mass of water of the river Jalon, its builder

I saw a of immense grandeur, one of the most sublime and extraordinary works of nature.

[A] rich and extensive property that for centuries was possessed by the monks.., "" (the Stone Monastery).., and the buildings thereon, consisting of churches, convents and the palace of the abbot, of different epochs of Romanesque, …