Tender for the participation of Catalonia in the Venice Biennale 2014
The Ramon Llull Institute (IRL), in collaboration with the COAC, has convened a public tender to choose the curator responsible for drawing up Catalonia’s proposal for taking part in the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale between 7 June and 23 November 2014. The first phase—the presentation of projects—ends on 13 June.
For the submission of projects, a conceptual framework was established that aims to demonstrate the paradigm shift taking place in contemporary architecture, whereby the current situation is triggering a readjustment of values that will usher in new ways of approaching architecture.
The competition is divided into three phases. The first of these is the entry phase, which is open to submissions of proposals by all interested professionals and companies that fulfil the requirements. In this initial phase, which closes on 13 June, entrants need to submit a CV and a draft project on a maximum of two pages, outlining the general ideas of the proposal in line with the conceptual framework and including a budget.
The second stage is the Ideas phase in which the jury will invite a maximum of three selected participants to further develop their initial project. The final phase is the contracting of the winning project. The final verdict of the jury will be announced on 16 July.
The proposals received will be appraised by an independent jury made up of:
Lluís Domènech i Girbau (President); the Dean of the COAC, Lluís Comeron; Fernando Marzà, member for Culture of the COAC; Fèlix Arranz and Jordi Badia, curators of the Catalan stand in the Collateral Events of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2012; and Carme Pinós, Olga Felip and Àlex Susanna.
This will be the second time that the IRL has promoted the presence of Catalonia at the Architecture Biennale, having presented the ‘Rowers’ project curated by Jordi Badia and Félix Arranz in 2012, which comprised nine works by young Catalan and Balearic architects, and comes in the wake of its third participation in the Art Biennale which is being opened this week.
See the competition rules here.
Organised by: Ramon Llull Institute and COAC
From: June 7th to November 23 (2014)
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