The "Rowers" exhibition in Toulouse
Between 20 June and 14 September this year, the Southern Centre for Architecture and the City (CMAV) in Toulouse hosted the exhibition 'Rowers, Young Architecture in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands', featuring the project which Catalonia and the Balearic Islands exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012.
Conceived by Jordi Badia and Félix Arranz and produced by the Ramon Llull Institute in collaboration with the COAC and the COAIB, ‘Rowers’ highlights the importance of austere architecture based on respect for the environment and its users, taking a quotation from Jorge Oteiza as its basic premise: 'He who forges ahead creating something new does so like a rower, moving forward but back-paddling, looking behind him, towards the past, towards what exists, so as to be able to reinvent its underpinnings.'
Thus, through the works of new Catalan and Balearic architects, the aim is to demonstrate that this kind of architecture is not just an automatic response to the economic crisis but a cultural and aesthetic trend that is directly connected to a whole intellectual, technical and social tradition of Catalan and Balearic architecture which has remained in place even when the international context was calling for other formal and expressive representations. It also makes a connection with the international trends that were already alerting us to the excesses of certain types of architecture in recent years.
The COAC has also developed a specific app that provides a guide to Catalan and Balearic architecture, featuring information on the 151 works and projects in the ‘Context’ section of the ‘Rowers’ exhibition.
The organisers of the ‘Rowers’ exhibition in Toulouse enjoyed the support of the companies CRICURSA, ESCOFET, FLEXBRICK and LAMP.
For more information on the exhibition, visit the Toulouse CMAV website.
Organised by: Southern Centre for Architecture and the City (CMAV)
From: June 20th to September 14th
'Espai Transmissor del Tumul de Sero' exhibited in Switzerland
Location: Basel
From: July 20th to August 18th
The proposal for Edifici 111 is showcased in Copenhagen
The architectural firm Flores & Prats is showcasing their project for Edifici 111 in Terrassa at an exhibition in the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen from 5 September to 25 October 2013. The 'Meeting at the Building' exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the School of Architecture of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and the guest architects and professors Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats, and features material relating to the design, construction and final status of Edifici 111 in an area of over 700 square metres.
The exhibition builds a scenario in which the everyday social relations of the campus of the Academy's School of Architecture overlap with those established every day by Edifici 111, and can be viewed in a series of videos. According to the architects, the aim is to 'bring a fragment of Barcelona to the Copenhagen campus to set the stage for discussions on the role of architecture in the European welfare society in the third millennium'. Visitors are invited to enter the scenario and get involved in this approach to the possibilities of contemporary social housing.
The exhibition is complemented by the results of the workshop that Flores and Prats held for students at the Royal Danish Academy last January on the design of social housing, during which they studied various cases in Barcelona and Copenhagen.
The exhibition will have a second and very unique complementary space: the showroom of the architectural firm Leth & Gori in an old bakery in the centre of Copenhagen. This will feature projects by Flores & Prats prior to the Edifici 111 venture which already featured some of its most distinctive characteristics. Also, in a reflection of the original activity in the premises, a selection of cakes and biscuits will be produced for the exhibition, featuring the shapes of the projects being exhibited there. The British artist Soraya Smithson and the Barcelona-based patisserie Escribà will be working together to cook these edible projects.
Organised by: Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen
From: 5 September to 25 October 2013
La rehabilitación de Fabra i Coats, premio Bonaplata 2013
El proyecto del Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona y el Centro de Creación Artística en Fabra i Coats, de Francesc Bacardit y Manuel Ruisánchez , ha sido galardonado con el Premio Bonaplata 2013 en rehabilitación (categoría de bienes inmuebles), según la decisión del jurado que se hizo pública el pasado 2 de diciembre .
El jurado subrayó el criterio director de toda la intervención, que ha sabido preservar y poner en valor un gran conjunto fabril barcelonés. Destaca la "aparente simplicidad para compartimentar nuevos espacios dentro de las naves de la antigua fábrica" , posible gracias a un profundo análisis de la geometría y la estructura original .
Por otro lado, el jurado también indica que "la austeridad y la simplificación en el uso de los materiales en la rehabilitación es una cualidad a destacar por el equilibrio que da a toda la intervención y la claridad de comprensión de los espacios".
En esta misma categoría, el jurado decidió otorgar un accésit a la adecuación y ampliación de la Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Tarragona en el recinto de la fábrica Chartreuse, de los arquitectos Víctor Seguí Y Marc Seguí Pié .
Los premios Bonaplata, que han llegado a su 21 ª edición, son otorgados anualmente por la Asociación del Museo de la Ciencia y la Técnica y de Arqueología Industrial de Catalunya para reconocer a personas e instituciones que hayan llevado a cabo acciones para valorar el patrimonio industrial mediante el estudio, la rehabilitación, la difusión o reivindicación de un territorio, un lugar, una instalación industrial, técnica o científica, de bienes muebles o de documentaciones industriales, técnicas o científicas.
Véase el web de los Premios Bonaplata