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The architecture of the Modern Movement has been characterised by open rejection of architectural forms linked to tradition and historical styles. Nevertheless, it was born from these roots.

This article sets out to make a short contribution to the analysis of the role of Geometry as an operational tradition in Architecture throughout history, and its importance for the formal control carried out by architects in different eras.

One of the aspects that has been commonly accepted and undisputed in recent history is the relationship of the GATEPAC foundation with an isolated event that occurred in Zaragoza in the 1930's. The events that surrounded and preceded this foundation, as well as their relevance to its constitution, have rarely been identified. We are referring to the "Modern Architecture and Painting Exposition", which took place in San Sebastian in 1930 and that was considered the most important showcase of national avant-garde art during those agitated years. As well, the Grupo Norte of this formation has also been habitually relegated an accompanying role, which detracts merit from the efforts of its members that were so representative and crucial within the national avant-garde, such as Vallejo, Labayen, Bilbao, Zarranz and, especially, Aizpurua, and the mechanisms that he put into motion with his vigor and determination.

Urbanism has normally been characterized by a preoccupation with obtaining a more humanized city; and the different conceptions of man and the conditions that his environment are what have inspired the different types of cities that have been conceptualized. In this correspondence between the anthropological and the urban -which never ceases- there have been diverse and more or less unified interpretations, although some of the theories involved have lacked analytical rigor. In this respect, I believe that the development of what is known as Dutch Structuralism, especially in its central European Neo-Rationalism derivatives, is of great interest because Holland is portrayed with a peculiar autonomy within the scope of urban design. Therefore, with respect to this goal of attaining a humanized city typical of the 1970's, the central European Neo-Rationalist ideal became the doctrine for the urban values that emerged in those years: participation, the value of the vernacular, historic aspects, etc. But this did not occur in Holland, where the preoccupation acted as the evolution of a Structuralist ideal that had been avant-garde since the sixties. It became the point of articulation between the first derivations of Modern Urbanism (the Team X phenomenon) and new intellectual trends and therefore, was linked to the architectural tradition at hand.

Henry Hobson Richardson, a North American architect born in 1838 in Louisiana and generally considered to be the founder of the Chicago School, as well as being one of the main exponents of the Shingle Style, toured Europe in 1882, just four years before his premature death in 1886. The trip was a significant event in his life and professional career, as well as being an important indication of the change in perspective that occurred in the late 19th century with respect to historical architecture. Spain was the final and decisive stage of that European tour because it turned out to be an encounter with an architecture of massive presence, volumetric composition and great expressive force that, until then, he had only had a glimpse of in a few illustrations in travel books during his training in the Ecóle de Beaux-Arts in Paris.

This study deals with some of the resources used in two buildings designed by Wright, in which his utopian vision of Man and the world are reflected. We will refer to the office building for Larkin Co. in Buffalo, N.Y. (1904) and the Unitary Church in Oak Park, Chicago (Illinois), from 1906. Both are clearly related to each other and belong to the non-residential work that F.L.W. did in his early years as an independent architect. They have features in common, such as their imposing air, the use of symmetry, severe volumes, flat projecting roofs, large windows and the abstract composition of ground plans, so characteristic of later work by Wright.

The garden of Villa Noailles in Hyères, on the French Mediterranean coast, has a precedent in the Garden of Water and of Light in the Decorative Arts Exposition of 1925. It represents a giant step in the world of gardening, which during the 19th century lagged behind the developments made in painting, sculpture and architecture. The experiments that were being performed in these art forms were transferred to the garden and as a result, the design of gardens entered the realm of the avantgarde. However, if this garden is analyzed further, it is clear that it maintains the stucture of Ranaissance villas in Florence. A parallelism can be established between the experimental 1920's and the studies of Antiquity of the 15th and 16th centuries. For the admirers of gardens, this garden provides another motive for delight in this art form.

The phenomenon of deconstruction involves the transposition of art from the public realm to the graphic discourse that is exploited and advocated by the contemporary veneration of the architectural drawing; yet this attitude seems to precede and even announce the end product. At any rate, it is possible that all forms of internal questioning of design hypotheses are in themselves a kind of deconstruction in as much as this questioning of guidelines or themes can acquire lhe rank of a law in the design process.

Four months after the Codex of Liébena was stolen from the Dioceses Museum of Seu d'Urgell on September 29th, 1996, the Director of the Guardia Civil delivered this marvelous miniature work to the bishop Monsignor Juan Martí Alanis in the romantic setting of the cathedral on February 14th, 1997. The speedy recuperation by the Guardia Civil of this prized work of the cathedral archives spoke well of the efficiency of this cops. Once this valuable manuscript was recuperated, it was publicly exhibited in the palace of the Generalidad de Cataluña on the day of St. George, Wednesday, April 23rd, 1997, giving the Barcelona populace a chance to admire this precious work and to celebrate its recuperation.

It begins by justifying the necessity, or at least the relevancy, of continuing to deal with the "avant-garde", although, at first glance, it would seem that nothing more can be said in this respect.