Best Face Forward
Facade Repair at La Fábrica with Panxo Juli
Best Face Forward
There comes a moment in everyone’s life when the face begins to show the wear of time. A physical weathering, cracks and pores appearing, colours fading. But nothing a light cosmetic touch-up can’t fix… until apparently it can’t. At this point, a more medical grade of youthfulness might be sought. It’s a shallow, surface-level procedure we’re talking about, but it is nonetheless a significant one: the face is the index of the mind, after all. So what’s really going on up there? For La Fábrica, that time of rejuvenating intervention is now. The team of surgeons: artists and artisans working shoulder to shoulder with the architects of the Taller; part of a longer, ongoing process of tending to the factory – methodically moving from space to space and treating them as necessary. It is also part of a closer alignment with the Taller’s origins, both in physical terms (reversing ageing) and in more metaphysical ones (returning to a familiar, artisanal way of working). Panxo Juli is a painter of many stripes and many colours, who has come to know the inner workings of the Taller over the years he’s spent treating its surface. Running between ladders and silos, we interrupted him to ask what he and the team have been up to of late. The factory’s first comprehensive facade-lift since the 1980s, Panxo explains below.
Panxo studied sculpture at the Industrial School of Barcelona before leaving to train in nautical painting with his father. He learnt the trades more broadly; the crafts of materials and colours that cover our surroundings: from television set design, interior design, decorative painting, and the manipulation of all kinds of materials: first conventional papers and vinyls, then natural paints and lime mortars. This evolution came from a desire to use more ecological, “noble” products, both for human health and environmental health, and for the well-being of the surfaces he works on. His passion for art has remained constant throughout – an interest in jewellery, painting, drawing. His work has led him to design a new product: "Natural Coquo", a natural lime mortar that would be adopted by the major retail-store circuit in Spain, and afterwards, around the world. Panxo is a multidisciplinary painter, an indispensable presence at the Taller, and perhaps the ultimate embodiment of the saying: “whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well”.
Panxo: Carrying out the renovation of La Fábrica’s facade is the greatest and highest-responsibility challenge I’ve had so far. The work is hard, but doing it well is right and necessary. This place is the base from which all of the Taller’s architecture emerges, so it should serve to demonstrate that trades and artisans are essential for conservation and projection towards the future.
The facade has undergone small modifications over time, adapting within what was possible at that particular moment. But the time has come to strip away the years – like taking off an old jacket – and reach the skin, the core of the structure, to carry out a complete work. Not in fragments like before, but in a way that enhances each form and the texture as a whole.
The cleaning of La Fábrica is being approached like the restoration of a monument, preserving all the original textures and treating the colour with transparent silicate glazes that crystallise and fuse with the concrete. We’re removing the rough paints and plasters that have been applied over time by diamond polishing the surfaces, which should reveal the composition of the materials with which the factory was built.
The people I’ve been working most closely with on this are Hernán and Annabelle, developing the colour palette and the definition of textures. Even though finding the final formula is complicated, knowing how to listen and capture ideas in order to transform them is what makes it all the more exciting. In the Taller, I’ve found a place where sensitivity towards colour and texture is appreciated with the same passion that I have.
Annabelle is in my opinion a master of knowledge and subtlety. She has an understanding of light – the warm and the cold – and of how to pause and reflect. She’s dedicated to finding what’s right, something essential in the art of conveying beauty. This, with Hernan’s clear parameters and vision, became a game of models, concrete samples, colours, trial and error, and time for contemplation. Of course, in the process, countless possible finishes for future Taller projects are offered up too.
At the Taller, projects are conceived for the whole world, and being able to transfer its ideas to other places and cultures requires a high level of control, to make sure the work is carried out to the best standard possible. In recent years, this has meant my helping to train or guide finishing teams in countries such as Georgia, Albania, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia. I believe those who have the gift of learning easily must also be generous in sharing their knowledge, and in that way, be able to receive it again.
We could say that La Fábrica is like a beehive, and those of us inside it are the pollinators who collect and release experiences. There are people from all cultures – it’s like a small world within the larger world. All the different teams work at a frenetic pace, on everything from the design details to aspects of light and form, textures of the whole – all to nth degree, to deliver clients their precious honey, flavoured with craftsmanship and decades of knowledge.
Ever since I arrived at the Taller I’ve felt like a member of the family, welcomed and respected by everyone. It was almost twenty years ago when I met Hernán. I remember how he and I immediately connected through shared sensitivities. He showed me images of Gordon Matta-Clark's interventions in buildings, something I hadn’t known about and found very interesting. Over the years, we crossed paths a few more times, even discussing the renovation of La Sala Rosa, but it didn’t quite materialise. Then, by chance, I was putting coins in a parking metre on Carrer Johan Sebastián Bach, carrying some lime samples for a client under my arm. I heard a voice say my name in surprise: “Panxo!” It was Hernán. He looked at the samples, smiled, and asked me what I was doing there. From that moment on, I’ve been working almost exclusively for the Taller.
My first job at La Fábrica was essentially the restoration of La Sala Rosa, then La Sala Cúbica. The most spectacular restoration was that of La Catedral, removing and replacing the old and deteriorated plasters and mortars, and preserving all the chromatic richness of its fantastic skin with silicate paints. I suppose the need to recover all these spaces, combined with my predisposition, gave rise to this beautiful relationship that I currently have with the Taller: of wanting to do things in the most correct way and, through hard work, trying to get closer to perfection.
