INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

All of us remember special moments in our Education. I mean those magic moments that transformed our way of thinking and changed our life.

I want to share with you a special one: when I went to study and live in London. My home was behind the British Museum, by Russell Sq, in a foundation call William Goodenough House for PhD students, mainly from the Commonwealth, and that means all over the world!

I just had finished my studies of architecture in Valencia, under a very rigid and competitive education. Therefore, it was a real surprise for me to find in that foundation a very collaborative attitude, sharing ideas from different disciplines and cultures.

This is the way how I got to know about the PORT TALK LECTURES. We were stimulated to explain part of our thesis to the rest of the community, while the audience were having a glass of port.

Such a small gesture opened new windows of opportunity, stablishing dialogues with other backgrounds.

Thirty years later, we, at UNIVERSITY of Universities, are precisely applying that same attitude of COLABORATIVE AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION… and very important and opposite to many schools of architecture: learning from the differences.

Indeed, we have borrowed the title PORT TAKLS for our series of online lectures given every Thursday night in the toughest time of pandemic. Being online, we just had to adjust their length into 15 minutes, the time for the audience to enjoy their drinks.

Under such a condition, the theme had to be, of course, quite precise: just a reflection originated from a project.

The talks worked very well, and they became a new way to socialize in those moments of solitude.

Today, as a tribute to those special moments in Education, we are very proud to present the new collection of books born from that experience. Please let me toast for the UOU REFLECTION series!!!

Alicante 17/01/2023
javier sánchez merina

CAPUCHIN CONVENT. Suspending time… by Victor Mestre and Sofia Aleixo.
Prologue by Joaquín Alvado Bañón