Manuel Gausa is a Spanish architect, theorist, educator and writer. Some of his most influential works are his editing of Quaderns magazine and the compilation of the ambitious Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture. Together with other protagonists of the advanced Catalan architectural scene, he founded the Metapolis Association in 1998, aiming to network and exchange knowledge of contemporary architectural and urbanism research. Gausa is interested in the relation of globalization processes and local phenomena reflected in discussing and articulating various spatial issues, ranging from regional planning to architectural interventions. Here Gausa uses new and sophisticated planning tools and methodologies based on the principles of open logic and reaction which should surpass classic modernist position. Oris interviewed Manuel Gausa during his work as a curator of the 41^st Zagreb Salon of Architecture.

ORIS — The Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture is one of your most influential works. You say that it was an outcome of emotions accumulated on the Spanish architectural scene. Wasn't it also the result of the accumulation of different ideas that needed an appropriate form of expression?

Gausa — This was not something calculated. We were preparing Metapolis II, a congress with a lot of young architects who were quite generous in providing us with material. We wanted to do something with it, but decided that it would not make the catalogue. Vicente Guallart and I tried to find a proper concept for combining this material and in th end we realized that we could make an illustrated encyclopedia out of it. It was an adventure without knowing the possibilities. We held many sessions deciding how to do it. The idea was not very clear at first, but we soon concluded that we should do an ideological dictionary, a dictionary that was not about names, but about concepts.