By Loor Naissir
I met the architect Jose Perez Orozco doing an interview for El Heraldo, at the end of the 80s.
I remember that he summoned me to his office and I was accompanied by a photographer.
When I walked in, I thought it was a toy store. Everything in half light. Everything it illuminated was an attractive design to look at.
He told me, illuminating his face and mine: “Welcome to Joselandia, sit comfortably, Loor”. A giant desk separated me from him.
I thought to myself, what an eccentric man. He looks like a great artist.
I was used to interviewing people from all professions with very different tastes and concepts of life.
I settled down and he, without speaking, began to show me designs of what he had done and what he planned to do in the city.
I had already seen him in the newspaper when he arrived accompanied by a friend, but he only told me the place where he wanted me to interview him: his work environment.
Of immense height, dressed in white down to his shoes, and with half-curly hair, a few centimeters above his shoulders. They say he doesn’t comb his hair.
He had a combination of styles: he had stayed in the fashion of the 70s with the haircut and perhaps paying homage to his father, a man appreciated for his seriousness, with white clothing, the style of the gentlemen of yesteryear.
At one point I felt strange doing the interview, but as the minutes passed, when he showed me his wonderful work, I noticed an indescribable passion in him.
He spoke very little, what was necessary, enough, I would say today.
I didn’t know I was sitting in front of a brilliant architect.
I once read that psychologist and researcher, Harvard University professor, Howard Gardner said that geniuses dedicate all their time, passion, and effort to what they put their concentration into.
José Pérez works driven by passion, not money.
He has done extraordinary work for the city such as the design of the Caimán del Río for the Malecón.
He showed the work with the mayor Alejandro Char and he went back into his house, away from the madding crowd, where he only attended to a few friends. He has many people who admire him for his work and for his human quality.
And he demonstrated it, on the night of Thursday, April 25, publicly when he said that the sale of his first book will be aimed at young people with limited economic resources who want to study architecture in the Autonomous University of the Caribbeanwhere he not only learned, but also dreamed of what his professional life would be like.
He is very shy, said his loving wife Patricia Payares, at the main table where his moderator Víctor López was.
Full house, a success, I had to hear what she responded and see the moments in which she dried her tears, glued to one of the two glass doors, which was packed with her admirers.
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I joined the chorus: “We love you Jose, we love you.” That came from the soul of his closest friends Juancho Abuchaibe, Foncho Bernal, Rafael Barrera, Jorge Lafaurie and Franco García, of the Bakkanos groupwho settled on a small staircase, located at the entrance to the living room.
His book titled ‘Anárquico’, which means disorder, madness, chaos, is the product of the provincial experiences of a genius from work.
The night closed with fireworks, which filled the sky with multicolored lights, the ones he likes.
José Pérez, the architectural genius, presented his book, his life and work.
Applause!
