Juan Manuel Villalba
Juan Manuel Villalba I was privileged to work close to him for a few years, each one with our very own drawing board; I worked on my texts while he made his astonishing models in scale, tireless, orderly, surrounded by silence. Before every delicate step I merely looked askance to him. He picked a tiny piece with the tweezers, applied a drop of glue and unhesitatingly, with a steady hand, placed it in its exact location. When I noticed he felt relaxed, I approached just to a have a look to every single fragile detail next to disintegration. He employed merely a dozen small tools, laid onto an always clean and tidy table, plus the assembly instructions and yellow plastic bits. While other areas of the atelier were a real…