“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”-this sentence comes to mind as l write. Does it mean that everything l experienced at the time was primarily the expression and the outflow of my state of mind, of the mood that l happened to be in at the moment? Did the experience ultimately have little to do with the square and its atmosphere? in order to answer that question, l conduct a simple experiment: l dismiss the square from my mind and the moment l do so, a curious thing happens: the feelings evoked by the situation begin to fade and even threaten to disappear. Without the atmosphere of the square I realize l would never have experienced those feelings. Now it comes back to me: there is an intimate relationship between our emotions and the things around us. That thought is related to my job as an architect. l work at the forms, the physiognomies, at the physical presence of the things that constitute the spaces in which we live. In my work, l contribute to the existing physical framework, to the atmosphere of places and spaces that kindle our emotions. The magic of the real: that to me is the “alchemy” of transforming real substances into human sensations, of creating that special moment when matter, the substance and form of architectural space, can truly be emotionally appropriated or assimilated.