With ‘Horizontal Architecture,’ entrepreneur Alan Faena completes what he began with ‘Architecture of Being,’ his first book. This work is a personal manifesto on unlimited freedom and creativity. To present the book, Faena returned to Buenos Aires and gathered a group of notable personalities in the warm setting of The Library Lounge at his Puerto Madero hotel.
On Friday morning, surrounded by guests, Faena spoke with journalist Cristina Pérez about what will actually become a trilogy of books. Alongside the two already published works, the third, ‘Vertical Architecture,’ is currently being written.
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“Fragility and strength live within all of us, and I don’t see either as more virtuous,” Faena explained in front of family, friends, and cultural and business personalities. “No one can be strong without having been weak first; otherwise, there’s no comparison. While the strong position seems interesting to live in, I believe it’s the weakness that truly connects you to yourself, to the world you want to explore, and it’s equally interesting to navigate through it.”
In this new book, Faena offers a deep and personal framework in which he delves into his life experiences. “Knowing how to fall, how to be in that fall, having the patience and confidence to understand that it’s possible to rise again,” he said, “are key aspects” of personal experience and his professional journey. “When one seeks their path, they fall. Since I was a child, I sought my own path, my own script, facing the external world and the friction it creates with the internal world, knowing that outside forces want to stop you.” He captures this exploration within the pages of his new book, across eight thematic pillars, diving into concepts like reality, priorities, waiting, falls, transformation, surrender, humility, and expansion. These themes guide readers through the author’s journey toward autonomy and freedom.
“This is the union of two books about the mystery of life, about my experiences and ideas, about a lifetime of work to be free, about not treading someone else’s path but creating your own. This is the challenge of every life,” Faena said about his texts.
From this perspective, the first book serves as a conceptual map that Faena conceived on how to advance one’s being and shape ideas into reality. The second book acts as a procedural map, outlining the steps that make personal paths and strengths fuel the potency of creation in whatever one chooses to do or not do. This journey leads to the tranquility of being in a state of wholeness.
On Friday, Faena also highlighted the crucial role his family played as a support system in what he described as “being a builder of dreams.”
“My greatest strength to face the fears and frictions of life was the love of my family; it was my greatest asset, and I was always full of that love. For me, ‘being is knowing how to return,’ and in my case, that was my family. We all have a place of peace in our lives,” he reflected.
Finally, he explained: “These books are a philosophy of my experience where I learned that fear of losing takes you away from the path to freedom. Without that impoverishing fear, it’s possible to live your life creating who you are at every moment. This is not a book about accepting reality, but about creating it and achieving the freedom that is the essence of existence and what motivates my life.”
RP
