César Portela becomes an honorary member of the Real Academia Galega de Belas Artes

The ceremony took place this Saturday in Pazo Baión, whose restoration is one of the most emblematic works of the architect César Portela

The Domus and the Palacio de Congresos y Ocio de A Coruña, the Auditorio Mar de Vigo and the new airport terminal in the city of A Coruña, the Museum of Natural History in Santiago and, of course, the restoration of Pazo Baión. All these works, true icons of contemporary Galicia, have something in common: they are projects designed by the architect César Portela. After a long and successful career both inside and outside Galicia, César Portela has become an honorary member of the Real Academia Galega de Belas Artes in a ceremony that took place this Saturday, August 23rd at Pazo Baión. Where else?

During this exciting event, Portela read the speech Architecture: a discipline between art and technique. In it, he defended the role of architecture as art, but also as a discipline at the service of society. The Galician architect’s works, such as the Cordoba Bus Station, bear witness to this binomial.

As tradition dictates, César Portela’s words were answered by another member of the institution he is joining: the architect Xosé Manuel Casabella López.

Portela’s admission as an honorary member of the Real Academia Galega de Belas Artes highlights his extensive career and the importance of his legacy, not only for the world of architecture and art but also for society as a whole.

For all of us who are part of the Pazo Baión project, it was a pleasure to host this solemn event and, thus, pay tribute to the architect who transformed into ideas and plans the desires of Condes de Albarei when he took control of this historic property in 2008.

Pazo Baión, the epitome of César Portela’s ideas and values

«In Pazo Baión, it can be said that everything in it is Architecture», with these words, César Portela sums up the importance of architecture in the Pazo Baión project, a property dedicated both to producing the only single-estate Albariños and to being a nationally prestigious wine tourism space. Both concerning our innovative winery and Pazo Baión as an enotourism corner, architecture blends with nature. Precisely, the architect affirmed during his speech that «good architecture does not destroy nature, but respects, sublimates and enriches it».

So much so that César Portela maintains that «the air, the wind, the water, the mist, the fog, the smell… the light, the wine containers, are also Architecture or, at least, they help to shape it».

Therefore, nature played a central role in the project that Portela designed to return to Pazo Baión all the luster of yesteryear and, at the same time, to condition it to become a benchmark for wine tourism in the Rías Baixas and the production of wines of the albariño variety. Thus, the respect for tradition and the past of an estate with five centuries of history was complemented with a delightful modernization of all its facilities, the rehabilitation of the deteriorated heritage, and the humanization of multiple spaces.

The result is a small corner of the world where time stands still and people can enjoy an irresistible combination: of nature, history, and the best Albariño wines. A place halfway between the divine and the human.

Anyone who has been to Pazo Baión and has enjoyed its charms knows that there is something magical about this estate, an intangible charm that is difficult to verbalize. An irresistible attraction that led César Portela to affirm that «throughout this work, I have experienced a strong nostalgia for realism and, at the same time, a no less strong yearning for utopia». This is Pazo Baión, a unique space halfway between the past and the future, between the real and the ideal.

In our property, César Portela was able to express all his ideas and highlight the architecture, history, culture, and nature of Galicia. A rehabilitation project thought to the millimeter that did not renounce to introduce avant-garde architectural elements and accommodate other arts such as sculpture.

Of course, Pazo Baión is the best place to make official the admission of César Portela as an honorary member of the Real Academia Galega de Belas Artes. In this estate, art flows everywhere.