Chillida’s relationship with architecture began in Madrid, where he started studying this discipline in 1943. He gave up his degree to focus instead on art, though he did not completely abandon architecture. Its influence remained present throughout his artistic career, not in a functional way but rather aesthetically and poetically. His concern for limit and space has much in common with architecture. Eduardo Chillida created spaces by placing limits. For Chillida, “limit is the true protagonist of space”.

Chillida's spaces are not habitable in the strict sense of the word. They are abodes of the spirit, created for poetry, music and thinking, and for questioning the unknown. Chillida hollowed out matter to introduce space within.