Rafael Leoz's Spanish Embassy in Brasília: Geometry Meets Landscape

The Spanish Embassy in Brasília, designed by architect Rafael Leoz between 1970 and 1976, exemplifies a synthesis of modular geometry and organic landscape. The building uses a hexagonal module Leoz called a "hyperprisma hexagonal," forming a cluster plan reminiscent of structuralist projects by Aldo van Eyck, Corrales y Molezún, Piet Blom, and Herman Hertzberger. Despite criticism from masters like Fisac and Sáenz de Oíza, who rejected modular systems as oversimplifications, Leoz's embassy demonstrates that architecture can reconcile geometric order with spatial experience. The project was built with collaboration from Fernán Bravo, Ricardo Novaro, and Juan A. Boix. The article, by Miguel Ángel Díaz Camacho, reflects on the persistent dualities in architectural theory, such as organic versus rational, and argues that such binaries fail to capture architecture's complexity.