“The virus is transitory, and it won’t change everything at once,” Carlos Lamela shares in ‘El Norte de Castilla’

Among great changes and modifications by good sense and historical teaching of architecture, Carlos Lamela, president of Estudio Lamela, shares his thoughts in the newspaper ‘El Norte de Castilla’ alongside colleagues and professionals such as architect Juan Herreros; José María Ezquiaga, former dean of the Madrid College of Architects (COAM); and Paloma Sobrini, general director of Architecture and Heritage Conservation for the Madrid City Council.

“The virus is transitory and it will make us reflect, but it won’t change everything at once,” Carlos Lamela observes. And he adds: “There will be small changes, already demanded from common sense and logic, and in which, perhaps, the crisis will accelerate. Cities have hundreds of years of history. They have gone through wars, pandemics, and all kinds of fluctuations, and a virus that’s only a few months old won’t change them much.”

There’s no doubt, however, that it will leave changes. “What it will do is reaffirm what we already know about what a healthy city should be like,” says the president of Estudio Lamela. Wide, accessible, tidy, light and spacious for people. And, of course, many will look up and regret having closed the balconies – something that doesn’t occur in any other country in Europe. But next to that sky, construction has another roof. “It was overcome long before the bubble burst in 2008. We can’t build 600,000 homes a year. It’s nonsense. Tourism is more flexible than construction, but alone, it won’t be able to pull the weight of economic recovery,” Carlos Lamela predicts.

Ultimately, there’s a common thread of thought shared by these prestigious professionals: the Spanish newspaper has an impact, fewer rigid rules are necessary to recover small green areas, and to, for example, provide common areas in buildings where workspaces and living spaces coexist.