Jorge Mañas Ibáñez
Founder and CEO of Tag a+m
Interviewed by Angel Font for Testimonios para la Historia
His grandfather, an eminent engineer, and his father, an architect, marked the life of this professional who, at a very young age, became the construction manager of Barcelona’s largest project: L’Illa Diagonal. From the very beginning of his career, he combined project and design work with project management. He is passionate about tectonic architecture and integrated design. He confesses that his career has evolved from abstract into functional and sustainable architecture. He regrets that the work of architects is not sufficiently recognized and pleads for the newer generations to be capable of assuming the multifaceted character of Architecture and Urbanism.
Albert Einstein visited my grandfather in Barcelona
I was born into an upper middle class family who lived in the neighborhood of Sant Gervasi in Barcelona. The mentality at home was heavily influenced by the trajectory of my grandfather, Jose Mañas Bonví. Born in 1885, he was an engineer from Vinaròs of extraordinary talent and work ethic. He arrived in Barcelona at age sixteen and moved into a family friend’s apartment above a pharmacy. By 1910, he had already graduated in Industrial Engineering, Physics and Chemistry, and held two professorships. In 1924, he relocated to Paris, where the French government awarded him with a degree from the École Supérieure d’Optique. He also had the chance to meet Albert Einstein, with whom he established a good relationship due to his fluency in French and German. Einstein even visited my grandfather’s house in Barcelona. The first Spanish translation of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was included as an appendix in one of the many academic books he wrote.
Suffering during the Second Republic, the Spanish Civil War and Francoist Spain
My grandfather suffered greatly during the Spanish, even before the armed conflict. I found out later, since the topic was never mentioned at home. He, as a republican supporter, was exploited by the Republic. For an entire year, he was relegated to teaching in high school in Figueres. Later, he was readmitted into his professorships in Barcelona. He died in 1941 after suffering Franco’s retaliation as well as the loss of his daughter Luisa. Despite being a brilliant scientist, he had to send apology letters and get help from friends in the academic community to be able to get back into giving lectures at University. Science was his only patrimony - he never showed any interest for money and always kept a modest and simple attitude.
An independent and all-around architect
My father, Juan Mañas Redó, became an orphan at age seventeen. From the Spanish Civil War, he only mentioned that they had had to occasionally get by on locust beans and that his father moved him to a different school so he and his siblings would get something to eat. His widowed mother always prioritised the education of her three children. My father studied architecture and graduated in 1959. One of my uncles became an engineer and the other an architect and an engineer. My father was not a talkative person. He greatly admired my grandfather and made an effort to pass on the scientific curiosity he had gotten from him. He started his professional career working for the eminent Josep Maria Bosch Aymerich and later collaborated with several Swiss architects, with whom he carried out emblematic projects such as the Winterthur building in Barcelona as well as the Spanish headquarters of the Zurich AG. He later moved his workplace to his private household, where he worked and received clients as an independent architect. I particularly remember his extreme kindness and his self-discipline.
“They should go to a co-educational school and learn foreign languages”
My father saw the construction market boom during the second half of his career. At home, he had three drawing boards where we spent days and nights drawing. He was a very humble person who earned a good living thanks to his great perseverance. He was aware that his talent did not reach his father’s excellence and tried to teach my brother Javier and myself that we had to work hard in order to achieve success. Despite being very reserved, he was very explicit with my mother when it came to making a decision about our education. As a great admirer of his father’s language skills, he firmly argued in favor of sending us to a co-educational school with a strong focus on foreign languages.
The Swiss School of Barcelona marked my life
The Swiss School of Barcelona was close to our home, and my mother tried to register me there. Despite being an expensive private school, demand was very high and admissions were restricted to the children of executives from Swiss companies established in Barcelona. A friend suggested my father to talk to the Swiss architects with whom he had collaborated and found out that a small amount of registrations were blocked every year. This is how I was admitted into the Swiss School, where my younger brother Javier joined two years later. Enrolling at the Swiss School felt like entering a bubble: it offered a spectacular humanistic and scientific education that had nothing to do with the rest of schools in Spain. I enjoyed a very happy childhood there. I left the Swiss School at age seventeen and spent a year at the Ausiàs March high school, where I took sat the exams to access. Spanish university. That constituted a completely different experience.
From a co-educated school to demonstrations in favor of coeducation
My year at Ausiàs March school was a shock for me and the four other schoolmates from the Swiss School who joined me. Being used to mixed classrooms with boys and girls for over a decade, we found ourselves demonstrating in favor of coeducation. We had just abruptly transitioned from our Switzerland bubble to Spain. That year, despite being an academic success, was unusual and felt out of place, since we did not fully understand our new environment. The experience seemed to be even more shocking to my friends from the Swiss School, who years later reminded my mother about how I helped to keep the spirits high and spread positivity within our group.
The vision of Adolfo Suárez
The main person I recall from the transition into democracy is Adolfo Suárez, who to me represented Swiss order. I agreed with his vision, which he summarized by saying “we need to change the pipes but must keep the water running”. Suárez was a modern man who, unlike his old-fashioned and sad predecessor, conveyed a calm and forward-looking message. I decided to vote for him in the first election in 1977.
The long and careless university years
Based on the family tradition, it was clear that I would get a university degree and eventually become an engineer or an architect. I enrolled as an Architecture major in the Polytechnic University of Catalonia with little vocation. My passion for the subject gradually developed with the passing of time and continuously grew with every new professional experience leading up to today, where I have become obsessed with it. I do not remember much stress or suffering as a student. Back in the day, my friends and I were mainly interested in visiting the female students at the Pharmacy faculty in the white Ford Fiesta I had. We were not hard-working students and spent a significant part of our first university years in the faculty café. Most of us spent ten years to finish our studies.
An atypical career start through computer science
When I was finishing my Architecture degree, I discovered the emerging world of IT and software. I attended several coding courses at university, I bought my first computer and entered dove into the subject. I particularly remember a book by Niklaus Wirth called Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. The title perfectly summarized programming. Armed with this new knowledge, I went through the job openings in the newspaper and found out that a private school in Bellvitge was looking for a computer science teacher. They wanted to start offering lessons but did not have any computers. It was an impressive career start: I was given the freedom to design the computer room, buy the computers and software, and teach Logo, Pascal, Basic and Dbase. I even had the opportunity to redesign the school’s newspaper. It was an extremely gratifying experience with endearing people.
A fascinating job at the Formula One circuit at age twenty-nine
My wife and I had a group of friends who had studied civil engineering. One of them worked at GPO, a young engineering company that had recently been founded by three partners that eventually grown into an enormous firm. They asked me to join them, where I was appointed to ramp up their IT system. We are in the second half of the eighties, not long before the Olympic Games of Barcelona and shortly before my graduation from University. Around that time, CAD and structural analysis software such as SAP80 were slowly making their way into the corporate world, and the main purpose of computers was text editing. It was a time with a steep learning curve. I quickly transitioned from IT systems to supporting in engineering projects and owning my first projects in urbanism and design of industrial warehouses. The first project I fully developed at GPO was the TAF helicopter hangar and its corresponding offices in Sabadell. I am also proud of other projects such as the Eix Macià axis, also in Sabadell, the industrial park in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, residential and industrial parks for the Incasol institute and, most importantly, the urbanism project of the Formula One Circuit of Catalonia, where I collaborated with a civil engineer. Taking part in that project at age twenty-nine was fascinating. I combined my job at GPO with my last years at university, and graduated in 1989.
An unexpected call the day after my wedding
I married Carmen Pont, a pharmacist, on June 7, 1990. At the time, I was working at GPO and some months before I had been contacted by a headhunting company. The first question I had been asked was whether I spoke German. When I told them I did, I was invited to a round of interviews and was told that they were planning a very large, singular and attractive project. I thought they wanted to renovate the SEAT automotive headquarters and attended. I had to take multiple psychometric tests and was thoroughly interviewed on my past experience. Two months later, I was invited for a second round, followed by a third one with a manager of the Winterthur insurance company. Months passed and my wedding day came. We passed our first night as a married couple in our new apartment and woke up late the next morning. Whilst packing to go on our honeymoon to the Garda Lake, Venice, Austria, and Switzerland, the phone rang. I joked with my wife as to whose mother would be the first one to call. I was surprised to hear the headhunter’s voice on the other end of the line, who told me they wanted me to immediately join the executive board who would manage the construction of L’Illa Diagonal. I could not help saying that I had just gotten married and would join the project some days later.
A project of 300.000 square meters
When we returned from our honeymoon, I called GPO to submit my resignation. I felt the nervousness of starting a new endeavor and leaving another company behind. It is crucial to know how to leave the company you have been working for, especially when one has been treated excellently on a professional as well as on a personal level. This is how I became the Construction Manager of L’Illa Diagonal. The architects of the project were Rafael Moneo and Manuel de Solà-Morales, and the property was owned by the Winterthur insurance company and the Sanahuja family. Aside from the main building, which inclues with a shopping mall, offices and a hotel, the project included two schools, a sports center, a public library, a congress center, a training center, a tunnel crossing Barcelona’s Avinguda Diagonal, a public park, and the urbanism of the entire complex. L’Illa Diagonal counts with over 300.000 square meters and was the largest construction in Europe at the time. Its length is the equivalent of three full blocks of Barcelona’s Eixample, and the total surface is seven times the size of the city’s main skyscrapers. Being a part of the management team of a project of this magnitude, directly reporting to the manager of the board of owners, was a unique opportunity.
Intense months until the opening ceremony of L’Illa
I could not fully enjoy the opening ceremony of L’Illa Diagonal because of some last-minute issues, such as guaranteeing the electric supply to the complex. It was a great project that involved a lot of suffering. The last six months concurred with the birth of my older son and were particularly intense: we worked for over 12 hours per day, Saturdays and Sundays included. The pressure and the pace were burning out the most hard-working, but the opening had to be guaranteed before the Christmas season of 1993, in the midst of the of the post-olympic economic crisis. I remember exchanging glances with head of the manager of the board of owners, an extraordinary professional, during the opening ceremony - he also looked pale and exhausted. Only then did we realize the magnitude of our achievement.
L’Illa Diagonal: A building that has characterized the city of Barcelona.
L’Illa Diagonal was a unique learning experience. I feel privileged to have been a part of the project. My friends from university were getting started with small projects and I, thanks to my experience at GPO and the Swiss School, got the chance to work with a team of extraordinary professionals, most of which had ten or fifteen more years of experience. Whenever I run into the headhunter who hired me, I ask her: “didn’t you find anybody else with more experience who spoke German?” We laugh. At the time, it was very unusual for an architect to start working at a civil engineering firm and move on to project management. It has been twenty-five years since L’Illa Diagonal was finished and it still is a spectacular building that, despite its size, has perfectly integrated the southern side of La Diagonal avenue into the district of Les Corts. It is one of the buildings that characterizes the city of Barcelona. Despite being mainly involved in project management activities at L’Illa, my education as an Architect made me pay close attention to the project-related aspects. I greatly admire Rafael Moneo’s work.
Explosive tests with dynamite
When the shopping mall project came to an end, the department for Special Projects at Winterthur was founded. We developed fun initiatives such as transforming the Washington Irving Library in Madrid (where the CIA was said to have been based) into an auditorium and drafting a training center for Winterthur. We also finished the congress center behind L’Illa Diagonal and built the safety bunkers for the servers of the Southern European delegation of the insurance company. I remember calling the ammunition dump of the military and asking for support to stress-test the bunker’s walls with explosives. They offered their help and son I found myself subjecting the safety walls to tests with dynamite. It was a highly creative time where we carried out many different projects.
I believed in a project that inspired me despite getting more emblematic offers
When Winterthur acquired two additional insurance companies (Schweiz and La Equitativa), our department had to focus its efforts on analyzing the company’s real estate to consolidate the three companies into one. Amongst the multiple integration activities came the closure of our department. I personally benefitted from the situation, since I was leading the only two ongoing projects and was hired as an external workforce to finalize them. I entered a period of reflection, where I had to decide between starting my own company or looking for a corporate job. I finished the two open projects: the regional delegation and the auditorium of Saragossa and an office building in Montmeló. I then updated my CV, which I distributed. I soon received numerous attractive offers which contained plans for the two most emblematic projects in Barcelona. Between the offers, I found one from the Hesperia Hotel Group. After multiple interviews and psychometric tests, I was introduced to the owner of the company, also an architect, who told me about his promising expansion plans. With a reputation for being tough, demanding and very intelligent, he managed to transmit his enthusiasm for a project that would grant me absolute autonomy. With very ambitious offers on the table, I decided to bet on the passion and drive of Hesperia’s president. The idea to ramp up an entire department from scratch, the complete independence within the company and the possibility to combine own projects with project management did not seem like the most comfortable but certainly the most thrilling proposal.
Highly stimulated while reaching professional maturity
I became Director of Projects and Construction of the Hesperia Hotel Group. I felt very comfortable because I enjoyed complete autonomy and counted with a team of very motivated professionals. I reached professional maturity, and I had continuous success in my own projects and doing project management work. Days were intense, and my schedule could include joining Richard Rogers’ team onsite at the Hesperia Tower in the morning, talking over lunch with Dominique Perrault about an office building and spend the afternoon with my team working on a project for a hotel in La Coruña and the interior design of another hotel in a different Spanish city. The expansion achieved within five years was impressive. The resulting portfolio, including new projects, project management and integral restoration work totals over fourty independent buildings. Relevant projects of the time include the Hesperia Tower skyscraper, two hotels in Bilbao, three resorts on the Canary Islands, the Hotel Presidente as well as four more hotels in Barcelona and the Hesperia Madrid, amongst many others.
The decision to start my own company: Tag a+m
At age fourty-five, and while recovering from a severe accident I reflected on the past achievements: I had realized projects at GPO, I had learnt about project management at L’Illa Diagonal and done additional project and design work at Winterthur, I had signed multiple projects and managed many others for Hesperia…I came to the conclusion that it was the right time to start my own firm. While looking for a name, I revisited different work areas: Técnica, Arquitectura, Gestión (Spanish for: Technical Work, Architecture and Management), that was it – Tag. The a+m stands for architecture and management, the two main work areas. Towards the end of 2004, I persuaded my colleague and friend Pere Rubiras, with whom I had worked at Hesperia and I knew since L’Illa Diagonal, to become partners. The start of 2005 came with a new and demanding challenge: Habitat hired us to take over the project management of the Habitat Sky hotel, Barcelona’s fourth tallest building. Perrault, whom I already knew and with whom I still keep an excellent relationship, was the architect. The project was an important and emblematic undertaking and consolidated a successful start for Tag a+m. I remember the president of Habitat and his sister, a magnificent architect, with great affection and gratitude.
A+M: Architecture and Management
From the very beginning I believed that Tag a+m had to focus on medium and large projects such as office buildings, residential and multifunctional buildings, and hotels within the private sector, where we had solid expertise. At Tag a+m, knowing our client’s needs and the product is of utmost importance. Whether the responsibility of Tag a+m lies within project and design work or project management is a secondary element: it’s two different ways of tackling the same objective. When it comes to our vision on the business of architecture, we have a clear opinion: Architecture is a discipline for the architect like Medicine is for the doctor. In project management within the construction sector, however, there are diverse opinions. Despite seeming obvious, it is often not the case. I founded the Project Management Group of the Architects Association of Catalonia (COAC), and that was my main objective during my tenure.
Years of suffering and risky projects
From 2009, I realized that there was a need to go abroad and enter new markets. I am a restless person that does not give up. The financial crisis hit the Spanish construction sector and nobody in Barcelona needed an architect and, even less, a project manager. Armed with a suitcase, a company presentation, and relying on a non-consolidated network, I departed to sell projects abroad. I traveled four times to China for extended periods of time and participated in different architecture competitions: The C4 building in Guangzhou, the F1-F2 complex in Hangzhou, a neighborhood in Guangzhou, another one in Nanjing, hotels and residential buildings in GuanYinGe,… The programs were extraordinary and the professional experience was unique. I reached other architects in a similar situation who joined us under the name of Tag & Partners. We won competitions against firms with over 3.000 employees and negotiated an impressive contract. The adventure, however, turned out to be a failure from an economic perspective. Algeria, Libya and Morocco led to around twenty additional trips that slowly resulted in projects: the extension of the city of Benslimane including an airport and a Formula One circuit, a Riad in Rabat, a hotel in Casablanca, a shooting club and a beach club in Mohammedia, the offices of Linde Gas and five hundred apartment units in Alger, an office building in Kouba…Some projects were even presented amongst the highest political ranks in the country, but most projects never took off. A joint effort in Brazil with a conglomerate of architecture firms from Barcelona also failed. My luck, which had been so generous throughout my career, was turning its back on me.
If economic recovery ever arrives, it will catch me working
Despite unfruitful, the projects abroad had kept us as occupied, active and creative as ever before. The requirements were complex but were solved with solidity. We were very competitive. Investing four months in China and delving into Arabic and Eastern European markets was an extraordinary experience. The personal and cultural enrichment were notable. When you have been traveling for fifteen days in China and you are spending your evenings alone in your hotel, you can either get desperate or try to seize the opportunity to dive into the country’s culture and go over the ongoing projects and scheduled conferences. My attitude towards it was the latter. If economic recovery was to ever arrive, it would catch me working.
Projects start coming in
During the latest years we had combined our endeavors abroad with the renovation of residential buildings and, most importantly, preliminary and schematic designs as well as viability studies for existing customers. We were ready, we had not stopped working and the journeys had offered me a different perspective on architecture and the world. In the summer of 2014, some of the studies were fruitful. New projects slowly came back in from very solid clients, and Tag a+m hired another partner, Jordi Fornells, as well as other younger architects that have brought fresh air into the company. Keeping our original vision in mind, and considering our clients’ needs, we naturally combine project design work and construction supervision with project management. Sustainability is a key factor in all projects we are involved in, and our buildings are awarded with an environmental certificate.
We have witnessed a great devaluation of Architecture
The architect of today is weaker than two decades ago. Other stakeholders have gained a lot of importance. The transition into democracy, joining the European Union, the Olympic Games, the years of growth and the real estate bubble have all transformed Spain, and we architects and urbanists have had a leading role that has been reflected in many representative works of world-class architecture. The financial crisis changed things. Every new project afterwards was heavily questioned and was not started until every aspect of it was thoroughly discussed. Architects, who used to enjoy artistic and technical freedom, are now another element of the construction sector, where other agents intervene with more strength. The excess was not good, but neither was the loss of importance of Architecture. The only adequate professional for Architecture, Urbanism and Construction is the architect, and we must expand our area of work by confidently assuming other roles within the sector. It is urgent to dignify our profession.
My early role models
My role models are not different from those of other architects from my generation: Mies Van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto are and will always be the masters of our profession. I remember my first project at university was a newspaper stand in Barcelona’s Plaça Molina, close to the Swiss School. Back in the day, I was really interested in Mies Van der Rohe’s work and I had a neighbour who sold methacrylate domes on aluminum pillars. I already had a technology and the master to draw my inspiration from. This clear and simple approach was how I entered the profession. I confess that the architecture projects I have been involved in never succeeded to move me. I am very proud of it, but it has never emotionally moved me. I am moved by the Pantheon in Rome, the Mosque of Cordoba, the Rockefeller Center, the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van Der Rohe and, as a contribution beyond architecture, the Solomon Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao. Yes, L’Illa Diagonal is extraordinary, but not sublime like the Rockefeller Center. One needs to be humble and recognize the magnificence of certain works of architecture. I would have certainly not declined to participate in the construction of the Rockefeller Center…
Passion for sustainable, tectonic architecture and integrated design
As my professional career progressed, I grew passionate about the work by Coderch, the Italian architects Ponti, Albini and Gardella; Asplund and Jacobsen, and the Case Study Houses program: Craig Ellwood, Mr and Mrs Eames, Soriano, Koenig,… I transitioned from a more abstract into a less rigid architecture and integrated design. I like the houses by Lanfranco Bombelli and Peter Harnden in Cadaqués, and the Swiss Herzog and Meuron as well as Peter Zumthor. When it comes to Spanish architects, I have always admired Rafael Moneo, a magnificent architect and an even greater professor.
I am proud of having been able to master the complexity of certain projects
From a project management perspective, and aside from L’Illa Diagonal, I feel proud of having participated in the Habitat Sky, the Hesperia Tower hotel, the renovation of the Nestlé Campus in Esplugues de Llobregat, and the office building of Inbisa in Barcelona’s Carrer Pujades. We have been responsible for the project management of over fifty buildings. When it comes to project design work, I would like to highlight the Eco City of Benslimane, Barcelona’s Motel One, the SA65 offices, the C4 building in Guangzhou, Winterthur’s regional delegation and auditorium in Saragossa, and the Formula One Circuit of Catalonia.
The work of an architect goes beyond design
The Law of Architecture approved by the Catalan authorities defines our profession as “the results projecting, directing, building, renovating and maintaining buildings and urban spaces throughout their entire life cycle - with the participation and collaboration of different professional disciplines to master its complexity as a whole”. I indeed believe that Architecture is a complex task where multiple disciplines converge! The key of our profession lies in empowering the architect to carry out a significant part of said disciplines - by extending his academic training if necessary. To quote Coderch: we don’t need geniuses, but professionals who are passionate about their contribution to society from any aspect related to construction and urbanism.
In face-to-face interviews, I convey assurance, reliability and honesty
I have mainly worked with a reduced number of clients, all within the private sector. I do not focus on customer acquisition and marketing because I do not enjoy it. The work I get is the result of a powerful career path that backs me and triggers the first contact via existing clients. During personal interviews, my goal is to convey our capacity and work ethic, our commitment to our client’s goals, and our honesty. Other ways to present ourselves do not fit our philosophy. As my father said, it is through continuous work with a client that you come to connect with the next. I am a worker of the construction sector, just like my father was.
Byung-Chul Han
The financial crisis has caused the fall of many architects. I deeply regret this. Aside from natural selection, many good architects have also fallen. The clients are not the same as before the crisis. The seven-figure fees have become more rare. Most Spanish professionals, myself included, almost started from scratch after the financial crisis. Despite some doing better than others now, the market has shrunk and we need to adapt to an increasingly complex and uncertain future. I have the habit of reading every evening before going to bed, preferably Architecture or Philosophy books. Byung-Chul Han, a South Korean-born German philosopher, describes in his books the evils of the contemporary man: our narcissism leading to depression, our self-imposed standards leading to frustration, the digital swarm and its consequences, psychopolitics…The only thing that will save us is love, romanticism and the discovery of the other.