HIGHLY PERSONAL: WHO’S WHO
Inside, we speak to architect Sam Gutiérrez.
It is my great pleasure to introduce this artist, Sam Gutiérrez, my best friend and an architect I deeply admire.
15IX17 – SITGES, SPAIN.
He belongs to a family of architects and engineers in Colombia and Spain.
Sam Gutiérrez, TREC’s main architect and chief strategist whose career story begins to fill it –secretly- in his childhood accompanying his father, his topmost reference in the field, a PhD in Architect from Bogota (Colombia), developer and builder, to the Construction Management of the hotels under construction in Tarragona and those located at the Costa Brava in the province of Gerona, as well as to Barcelona’s collective housing transforming all those years into a great camouflaged background.
The repetition of names and surnames for three generations has provided sympathetic confusion between one subject and another, without difficulty of clarifying the relations of family kinship. Who is the last member who joined the clan? ‘My cousin Sandra, daughter of my uncle (through my mother’s side), the also architect Samuel Ramírez’, says Sam.
‘We do work with integrity and discretion for clients who acquire and dispose of movable and immovable property or consider the possibility of preserving and restoring all the goods’, Sam adds. We do observe the highest level of personal discretion: is a fundamental prerequisite. ‘Today, the bulk of our demand is 95% of foreign clients who invest in Spain. They possess a great economical capacity and our management, communication and services provide them with peace of mind and ease and it gives them confidence. They ensure the result is optimal’, he admits.
A professional, prepared and multidisciplinary team makes the difference. ‘At TREC Barcelona, clients can afford to make money in such large rehabilitations we manage. Together with my team, we cover all the areas: from initial contacts, the search, the whole buying and selling process, management of languages, of necessary formalities with supplying companies and town councils up to the development and draft of all technical projects involved, the design from the most complex thing to the detail, the construction and management works and a few more services.’
Bureaucracy is dense as the fog in winter time and too lengthy. Maximum flexibility and adaptation to each customer’s specific needs, requirements and whims are key areas. We take action in the places where you live, work and stay.
The current trend is, undoubtedly, the rehabilitation of stately houses and palaces, magnificent in architecture and sumptuous in interior design. In Sam’s view, ‘the words ‘luxury’, ‘exclusive’ and its derivatives and the expression ‘highest standards’ or ‘high-class’ had been ‘adulterous’ for so long…‘, says Sam with a big sigh.’ ‘What I hate most is mediocrity’.
‘Along with my partner also architect and technical right arm, Javier Mañas, we are convinced that immediate future is the adaptation and what’s clear for me is it is also working in the world and be everywhere. As my main partner (a pure public relations) says and handles trickery, 24.7.365.’ A way of professional life that perfectly fits in her leisure, private and familiar space fully available 24 hours a day,7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Javier Mañas, architect and partner in TREC Barcelona.
‘When working with clients, it is a must that the clients participates in the process and gives me as much as I give them in turn.’ It is a multicultural strange marriage associated with a question of skin sensitivity. ‘You feel instinctively from the first time you meet.’
Predictability and unoriginality are nuisances that Sam avoids at all costs.
‘I do work with outstanding co-workers, partners, collaborators and clients; all as a team plan and conclude creative matters, constructive details and rational messages.’
Sam is not afraid to admit how much he has learned from his father. He is passionate when conceptualizing and executing a project. He is a perfectionist who approaches every task with dedication, combined with analytical precision and impeccable taste.
The guiding light that characterizes his art throughout his thirty-year career in architecture and interior design is a noteworthy coherence.
On the promising introduction of the role his wife plays in his working life, he is relentless. ‘She is my main partner, enjoyed a long career in public relations when living in the States and she was greatly influenced by her father and grateful to him, a man she dearly admired and remembers fondly. She is always a constant source of advice, help and inspiration. She plays a necessary role in my life, not least because of her organizational skills, which are rooted in her PR vocation. She has shared every moment of my professional field with respect, love, humor, consideration and admiration. She is an extraordinary woman and wife and friend. For me she is all.’
Adelaida Subías, partner in TREC Barcelona.
It just strikes me that he interrupted his speech since he distracted facing up. ‘I would have liked to have been a commercial airline pilot’. He seemed destined to be a pilot. Although his decision to enroll in the Faculty of Architecture in Barcelona was made at the last minute, he never regretted it.
Sam notes that ‘the global environment is highly competitive and intelligent adaptation of my ideas to my clients requirements power the result and optimizes its reliability’.
The more I work with Sam, the more I am hit by his talent to give his impression of contemporary style based on his rich cultural knowledge and a timeless good taste.
Written by Adelaida Subías
Photo Credits: Isabel López, Glamour Factory Photography
Editing & producing by Renovatio©