When I met Oscar Tusquets years ago, to design his first website, I was fascinated by his work, as an architect, but especially as a painter. Then I read his books and I liked the way he structures and explains his reflections. Eduardo Mendoza sums it up very well in a prologue: "what Tusquets proposes to us is a way of seeing and appreciating things so simple and so vital that it takes us by surprise and to the point that it shakes our habits and questions our criteria, it is stimulating to the highest degree".
Tusquets receives me in his house, with a kindness and courtesy that makes me feel at home immediately. I find him in great shape, at 80 years old, awake, witty, very attentive to the conversation as we talk, especially about photography and books. I guess he is a good talker, because apart from always contributing with a different and erudite vision, he leaves space for others and is interested in all opinions.
Architect by formation, designer by adaptation, painter by vocation and writer by desire to win friends, Oscar Tusquets Blanca is the prototype of the integral artist that the specialization of the modern world has led progressively to the extinction.
Graduated in architecture in 1965, after working in the studio of Federico Correa and Alfonso Milà, he created Studio Per with Lluís Clotet, Pep Bonet and Cristian Cirici. He has been assistant professor to the Chair of Projects of the ETSAB and has given lectures and workshops at universities in the United States and Europe. In 1983 he was named Life Patron of the Gala Salvador Dalí Foundation at the explicit wish of the Master. In 1987 he founded with Carlos Díaz Oscar Tusquets Blanca Arquitecturas with which he carried out projects in Spain, France, Holland and Japan. Since 2008 he works practically alone or with the sporadic help of young collaborators trained in his studio.
As a designer he is a founding partner of BD Barcelona Design where he started as a designer of furniture and objects. He has worked mainly for Italian, German and Spanish companies. Some of his pieces are part of the collections of museums such as the MoMA in New York or the Georges Pompidou in Paris.
As a painter he has exhibited in national and international galleries. In 2003 he publishes the book of art Anna (RqueR editorial), and in 2015 one of erotic painting, Hot Days (Umberto Allemandi & Co).
In 1994 he revealed himself as an essayist with Más que discutible (Tusquets Editores); since then he has published a dozen more books, in addition to articles and texts for other publications and for the press.
Among other distinctions, he has received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, the National Design Award, the Palme de Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Creu de Sant Jordi. In addition, he has two Premis Ciutat de Barcelona, and several FAD of Architecture and Delta of Design awards.