Author: cm

Venice Biennale 2016 Winners

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Spain, Japan, Peru, NLÉ & Gabinete de Arquitectura.

Alejandro Aravena and the jury for the 15th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia have announced on saturday the winning participations.

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Spanish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

The Golden Lion for Best National Participation went to Spain for UNFINISHED. The jury cited Carlos Quintáns & Iñaqui Carnicero’s “concisely curated selection of emerging architects whose work shows how creativity and commitment can transcend material constraints.”

Here is an article written by the curators of the exhibition and installation on show Iñaqui Carnicero & Carlos Quintáns.

“Spain is one of the countries where the practice of architecture has been most affected by the economic crisis. There are few places on earth where such large numbers of buildings were built in such a short period of time. The lack of reflection over whether these projects were necessary or valid resulted in the subsequent abandonment of many buildings when their completion or maintenance was discovered not to be economically viable. Their appearance throughout Spanish territories has generated a collection of unfinished buildings where the factor of time was eliminated from the formula for making architecture.

Using photography as a filter to portray this reality, the Pavilion’s central space represents the optimistic view of those who have fought back against this recent past, understanding these inherited constructions as an opportunity.

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Spanish Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image © Laurian Ghinitoiu

The “Unfinished” exhibition, presented in the Spanish pavilion at the Biennale, seeks to direct attention to processes more than results in an attempt to discover design strategies generated by an optimistic view of the constructed environment.

The exhibition gathers examples of architecture produced during the past few years, born out of renunciation and economy of mens, designed to evolve and adapt to future necessities and trusting in the beauty conferred by the passage of time. These projects have understood the lessons of the recent past and consider architecture to be something unfinished, in a constant state of evolution and truly in the service of humanity. The current moment of uncertainty in our profession makes its consideration here especially relevant.”

 

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Gabinete de Arquitectura. Image Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

The Golden Lion for Best Participant in the International Exhibition, Reporting From the Front, went to Gabinete de Arquitectura. The award was granted to Solano Benítez, Gloria Cabral, and Solanito Benítez (all from Paraguay) for “harnessing simple materials, structural ingenuity and unskilled labour to bring architecture to underserved communities.”

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NLÉ’s Makoko Floating School at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

NLÉ received the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant in the International Exhibition Reporting From the Front for his Makoko Floating School. The jury cited, “a powerful demonstration, be it in Lagos or in Venice, that architecture, at once iconic and pragmatic, can amplify the importance of education.”

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“OUR AMAZON FRONTLINE” / curated by Sandra Barclay and Jean Pierre Crousse. Peruvian Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Japan and Peru took home the Special Mention in the National Participations category. For Japan, the jury particularly appreciated “the poetry of compactness to alternative forms of collective living in a dense urban space.” They congratulated Peru for bringing architecture to a remote corner of the world, making it both a venue for learning as well as a means for preserving the culture of the Amazon.

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art of nexus / curated by Yoshiyuki Yamana. Japanese Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Image Courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia

Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo of Italy received Special Mention for her contribution to Reporting From the Front, which demonstrated “perseverance in using the rigours of her discipline to elevate the everyday into timeless works of architecture.”

As it was announced in May, Paulo Mendes da Rocha received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

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Look more about the pavilions here

Alejandro Aravena

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The Architect Rebuilding a Country.

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The fortress-like facade of the 17,000-ton Angelini Innovation Center in Santiago, Chile, which Alejandro Aravena designed for the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in 2011. Credit Photograph by Anthony Cotsifas

 

Good-looking, charming and a celebrity in his native Chile, the surprise winner of this year’s Pritzker cares more about solving social problems than exercising his artistic chops.

THE EARTHQUAKE, one of the biggest ever recorded, hit in the middle of a late February night in 2010. The real damage came 18 minutes later, with the tsunami, crashing from the Pacific up the estuary of the River Maule, where the small, hardscrabble city of Constitución nestles. More than 500 people died. Residents were left without homes, electricity and clean water.

The architect Alejandro Aravena was on a helicopter days later, surveying the damage. His firm, Elemental, and a team of consultants had been enlisted to put together a reconstruction plan. Arauco, the forestry company that employs thousands of workers in Constitución, had agreed to pay for it.

Aravena was picking at a plate of pernil in a truck stop, recalling what happened next, a story he has probably told a thousand times by this point. “Residents in Constitución naturally suspected, because we were working for the forestry company, that all the benefits of reconstruction would go to the company, not them,” he said. “That’s why we knew from the start that the people had to participate in the reconstruction process. In effect, we needed to create the right client. So we devised a consortium: Arauco, the government, the public and us. We were taking an intuitive approach because we actually knew nothing about planning. In the end, ignorance helped.”

Aravena polished off his beer when a stranger sidled up to the table. It happens all the time now. Drivers in passing cars stop him in the street. Shop clerks, politicians, long-lost acquaintances and schoolteachers ask for selfies with him. They all say the same thing. “Thank you,” the stranger said to Aravena, who smiled and posed arm in arm with the man for a picture. Thank you — as if the Pritzker prize, architecture’s Nobel, which Aravena had just won, had been awarded on behalf of everybody in Chile. “Even New Zealand has more heroes, they have the All Blacks,” Aravena half-jokes, about the famous rugby team. “We’re a small country. We hardly ever win anything.”

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The architect in Elemental’s small studio in a generic office building. Credit Photograph by Anthony Cotsifas

That said, Chile happens to be producing some of the world’s most gifted architects right now, a generation that includes Cecilia Puga, Sebastian Irarrazaval, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Mathias Klotz, Teresa Moller, Smiljan Radic (“the best architect in the country,” Aravena tells me) and Aravena. On top of the prize, Aravena is directing the current Venice Architecture Biennale, whose socially minded show he has titled “Reporting From the Front.” Naturally, this has brought skeptics out of the woodwork. Young for an architect, at 48, they note, relative to other Pritzker winners he hasn’t built a lot; and some of his signature projects, including Constitución, are still in medias res, so it’s not entirely clear how they will actually turn out. Moreover, he and his partners at Elemental — Gonzalo Arteaga, Juan Ignacio Cerda, Víctor Oddó and Diego Torres — concentrate on social housing. “The more monotonous, dry, tough, the better,” as Aravena himself puts it. “Given that people will construct homes for themselves anyhow,” he elaborates, “this architecture gives order to their interventions.”

“We don’t think of ourselves as artists,” he adds. “Architects like to build things that are unique. But if something is unique it can’t be repeated, so in terms of it serving many people in many places, the value is close to zero. We go into fields where the chance of failing is higher than average. We make mistakes. If we need to replace a window or make some other fix, it’s easier for us because we’ve built up an account of good will.”

Meaning, overall, the work is not the poetry in glass or curvaceous spectacle that has tended to woo Pritzker jurors — one of whom, as it happens, Aravena used to be, until he quit the jury only a year ago. The prize clearly acknowledges a sea change in architecture, which not everyone agrees with. “Aravena,” sniffed Rowan Moore, critic for The Guardian,“has some of the trappings of the starchitect: a high media profile, a globe-trotting, lecture-giving lifestyle, a carefully cultivated look, a bizarre hairstyle (think desert roadkill) that seems to get spikier and more top-heavy with every transcontinental flight” — as if engaging in public debate about the built environment and the role of architects makes him a media hound. It’s the usual Catch-22: Architects who don’t speak out are hermits. As it happens, Aravena promised his family he wouldn’t leave Chile more than once a month, which, with site visits to far-flung projects, means he has time for three or four lectures a year, he told me.

Before arriving in Chile, I had been told by some of Aravena’s colleagues that he’s standoffish. I found him earnest, open, a little nerdy — and deadly serious. This is an era of unprecedented urban growth, much of it informal, which is to say illegal slum development. The total number of displaced people in the world now rivals the population of France. Climate change is reshaping the globe. For architects, today’s challenges and opportunities are historic. “In the name of artistic freedom, architects made themselves irrelevant,” Aravena says. “I think we may look back and see this as a tipping point.”

If so, one place we’ll look to is Constitución. After the tsunami, construction companies there floated the predictable and self-serving idea of erecting an immense protective sea wall, which would have made a kind of fortress, or prison, of the ravaged riverfront. It’s a proposal politicians love: A wall is an impressive-looking thing they can cut a ribbon standing next to. But residents, in public meetings, had bigger concerns. Tsunamis were rare. The city flooded regularly, they complained. There was next to no green space, inadequate housing, little access to the river, poor roads and miserable public buildings.

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Tour the Venice Architecture Biennale on Facebook Live

This year’s director, Pritzker prize-winning architect Alejandro Aravena, takes us through the show, which, for a change, celebrates design that solves human problems. Join us live at facebook.com/tmagazine, this Thursday, May 26, at noon EST.

Barcelona & Gaudi walking tour

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Hi walkers!

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Our walking tour BARCELONA & GAUDI has received some reviews like that one:

“Informative and enjoyable tour

We booked BAW’s Gaudi walk before we left for Spain. It was easy to do and Miguel from BAW was prompt replying to questions by email. The only public Gaudi tour BAW had scheduled during our stay was on our last full day in Barcelona. Since the BAW tour included just the exteriors of the Gaudi buildings, the days prior to the tour we visited the interiors of the Gaudi buildings on our own.

By the day of the BAW tour, we were ‘Gaudi’ed’ out and we considered canceling or seeing if we could change to a different tour but we are so glad that we did not.

Joan from BAW was an excellent guide. We were extremely fortunate that we were the only ones on the tour that day. Not only did we learn about Gaudi but we also learned about the development of Barcelona and its Eixample neighbourhood. Joan covered the development of the modernist movement and pointed out interesting architectural elements and city planning concepts. He patiently answered our questions and explained concepts very clearly to us (though we love architecture neither of us has a background in the field). The time went by fast! If we visit Barcelona again, we will likely try BAW’s other tours as it would be interesting to learn more about the city, it’s architecture and development ( past, current and future). It was great to walk the beautiful city with someone so knowledgable about its history and architecture.”

Come and walk with us and verify it!

Book here

Superblocks

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A sustainable strategy for regenerating the city.

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(Image by Ajuntament de Barcelona)

 

Superilles, or Superblocks in English, is a project designed by Barcelona City Council in collaboration with the Urban Ecology Agency that aims to foster sustainable mobility, the intensive use of public spaces, biodiversity, social cohesion involving the participation of the general public, a reduced ecological footprint and, in short, which enhances the human dimension of the city. This will all be achieved by promoting a new type of urban organisation in five macro-areas specially chosen for the experiment.
What is a superblock?
This is a territorial unit that is smaller than a neighbourhood but bigger than a residential block, with calm streets where urban planning and environmental activities are held. Compact, efficient areas, that have a positive effect on the life of Barcelona residents and which are also self-sufficient in terms of energy consumption. The aim is to improve the quality of life and conditions for local residents, by rationally managing natural resources and public spaces, through the active participation of everyone involved and by fighting inequality and social exclusion.
What is going on in these superblocks?

  1. More sustainable mobility: by integrating the new Orthogonal Bus Network and Bicing in accordance with Barcelona’s Urban Mobility Plan, encouraging journeys on foot and by bicycle and improving the distribution of goods, in order to reduce both noise levels and emissions.
  2. Revitalising public areas: by making the streets quieter, increasing the number of recreational areas and promoting new uses for these places.
  3. Fostering biodiversity and urban vegetation: by improving the trees in the streets, favouring microhabitats in order to attract birds and increasing the amount of urban vegetation by creating new community areas
  4. Fostering the city’s social fabric and promoting cohesion: by guaranteeing appropriate local facilities, encouraging productive activities that create jobs and working for social inclusion.
  5. Promoting self-sufficiency in the use of resources: by reducing consumption, producing renewable energy, decreasing the demand for drinking water and making better use of greywater and river water.
  6. Integrating governance processes: by involving the general public when defining projects and developing actions.

The five superblocks have been sketched out in Les Corts, Hostafrancs, Eixample, Poblenou and in the area around Glòries.
The Les Corts superblock is one which has progressed the furthest. The zone is delimited by Travessera de Les Corts, Gran via de Carles III, Avinguda de Madrid and Riera Blanca. In this area, work has already been carried out on public spaces, with micro-urbanisation around Carrer de Benavent. The finishing touches are also being made to a crossroads that uses smart traffic lights.
The other superblocks are located in Hostafrancs (delimited by Carrer de Tarragona, Creu Coberta – Sants and Sants railway station), the Eixample (the area between the streets of París, Tarradelles/Tarragona, Gran Via and Urgell/Calabria), the new Plaça de les Glòries (the streets of Aragó, Castillejos, Tànger and Badajoz-Independència), and Poblenou (the area delimited by the streets of Bilbao, Pallars, Llacuna, Tànger and Avinguda Diagonal).

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Barcelona’s unloved planner invents science of ‘urbanisation’

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Cerdà’s was the first meticulous scientific study both of what a modern city was, and what it could aspire to be.

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Barcelona’s Eixample district, with Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia in the foreground. Photograph: Amos Chapple/Rex

 

Constricted by its medieval walls, Barcelona was suffocating – until unknown engineer Ildefons Cerdà came up with a radical expansion plan. Rival architects disparaged him, yet his scientific approach changed how we think about cities.

In the mid-1850s, Barcelona was on the brink of collapse. An industrial city with a busy port, it had grown increasingly dense throughout the industrial revolution, mostly spearheaded by the huge development of the textile sector.

The city was living at a faster pace than the rest of Spain, and was ready to become a European capital. Yet its population of 187,000 still lived in a tiny area, confined by its medieval walls.

With a density of 856 inhabitants per hectare (Paris had fewer than 400 at the time), the rising mortality rates were higher than those in Paris and London; life expectancy had dropped to 36 years for the rich and just 23 years for the working classes. The walls were becoming a health risk, almost literally suffocating the people of Barcelona – who were addressed directly in the following public statement of 1843:

“‘Down with the walls!’ has said this province’s council, and ‘Down with the walls!’ has no doubt answered your town hall, which knows the importance of making this girdle disappear that is squeezing and choking us.”

Demolition work would finally start a year later. Now the city and the Spanish government had to design and manage the sudden redistribution of an overflowing population. It was a controversial and highly political decision – which ultimately led to the then unknown Catalan engineer Ildefons Cerdà’s radical expansion plan for a large, grid-like district outside the old walls, called Eixample (literally, “expansion”). In the process, Cerdà also invented the word, and study of, “urbanisation”.

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The troops of Philip V enter through the walls of Barcelona in 1714; drawing by P Rigaud and engraving by M Engelbrecht, 1722. Illustration: Historical Museum of Barcelona/Alamy

By the early 19th century, the old walled city of Barcelona had become so crammed that the working classes, bourgeois society and factories all co-existed in the same space. “Everyone was suffering the consequences of an Asian-level density,” says the writer and essayist Lluís Permanyer, whose book Eixample: 150 Years of History chronicles that period.

As there was no more land left inside the city walls, all kinds of inventions were used to build more lodgings – houses were literally being created on empty space. Arches were erected in the middle of streets to be built upon, and a technique called retreating façades saw house fronts extended out into the street as they rose up – until they almost touched the building opposite (this practice was banned in 1770, as it prevented air circulation).

Traffic – in those days, horse-drawn carts – was problematic too: the city’s narrowest street (now gone) was just 1.10 metres wide, while around 200 were less than three metres across. This, combined with residents’ Mediterranean way of life (which meant being on the street whenever it was light – and in the case of some artisanal professionals, working there too), worsened an already severe lack of hygiene in the city.

By the early 19th century, the old walled city of Barcelona had become so crammed that the working classes, bourgeois society and factories all co-existed in the same space. “Everyone was suffering the consequences of an Asian-level density,” says the writer and essayist Lluís Permanyer, whose book Eixample: 150 Years of History chronicles that period.

As there was no more land left inside the city walls, all kinds of inventions were used to build more lodgings – houses were literally being created on empty space. Arches were erected in the middle of streets to be built upon, and a technique called retreating façades saw house fronts extended out into the street as they rose up – until they almost touched the building opposite (this practice was banned in 1770, as it prevented air circulation).

Traffic – in those days, horse-drawn carts – was problematic too: the city’s narrowest street (now gone) was just 1.10 metres wide, while around 200 were less than three metres across. This, combined with residents’ Mediterranean way of life (which meant being on the street whenever it was light – and in the case of some artisanal professionals, working there too), worsened an already severe lack of hygiene in the city.

Barcelona’s epidemics were devastating: each time they broke out, 3% of the population died, according to Montserrat Pallarès-Barberà, geography and urbanism professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Cholera alone killed more than 13,000 people between 1834 and 1865.

Into this came Cerdà. His plan consisted of a grid of streets that would unite the old city with seven peripheral villages (which later became integral Barcelona neighbourhoods such as Gràcia and Sarrià). The united area was almost four times the size of the old city (which was around 2 sq km) and would come to be known as Eixample.

This unknown engineer was revolutionary in what he envisioned – but also in how he got there. Cerdà decided to avoid repeating past errors by undertaking a comprehensive study of how the working classes lived in the old city. “He had thought he would find all these urbanism books, but there were none,” Permanyer says. So he was forced to do it himself.

Cerdà’s eye was as careful as it is fascinating. His was the first meticulous scientific study both of what a modern city was, and what it could aspire to be – not only as an efficient cohabiting space, but as a source of wellbeing (not a straightforward concept back then).

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España en la Bienal de Venecia.

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La arquitectura nacida de la crisis.

Remodelación Iglesia de Corbera d’Ebre ©José Hevia

Remodelación Iglesia de Corbera d’Ebre ©José Hevia

Los comisarios españoles para la próxima Bienal de Venecia, Iñaqui Carnicero y Carlos Quintáns, presentarán en el Pabellón de nuestro país en la Bienal de Arquitectura de Venecia “Unfinished”, una muestra formada por 67 propuestas y siete series fotográficas que pretenden ofrecer respuestas a la problemática surgida en España tras la crisis económica que ha seguido al boom de la construcción. Esta situación ha llevado a muchos estudios de arquitectura a reflexionar sobre las consecuencias del paso del tiempo en la arquitectura, tratando de responder desde la sensatez y la calma a los desmanes de la década pasada.

La propuesta de nuestro pabellón responde así a la declaración de intenciones del comisario asignado para la Bienal, el arquitecto chileno Alejandro Aravena, que ha fijado como objetivo de esta edición de la cita mostrar una arquitectura “combativa y resolutiva” para resolver desafíos actuales.

En palabras de Aravena, hay varias batallas que deben ser ganadas y varias fronteras que necesitan ser ampliadas con el fin de mejorar la calidad del entorno construido y en consecuencia la calidad de vida de las personas. Cada vez más y más personas en el planeta están buscando un lugar decente para vivir y las condiciones para lograrlo se están volviendo cada vez más difíciles. Cualquier intento de ir más allá de la norma encuentra gran resistencia en la inercia de la realidad y cualquier esfuerzo para abordar temas relevantes tiene que superar la creciente complejidad del mundo moderno. Pero a diferencia de las guerras militares donde nadie gana y hay un sentimiento predominante de derrota, en el frente del entorno construido, hay una sensación de vitalidad porque la arquitectura se trata de mirar la realidad en clave de propuesta. Esto es lo que nos gustaría que la gente venga a ver en la 15ª Exposición Internacional de Arquitectura: historias de éxito que valen la pena ser contadas y casos ejemplares que deben ser compartidos, donde la arquitectura hizo, es y será la diferencia en ganar esas batallas y ampliar esas fronteras. REPORTING FROM THE FRONT tratará de traer un público más amplio, cómo se siente mejorar la calidad de vida mientras se trabaja en los márgenes, en circunstancias difíciles, frente a los desafíos apremiantes. O que hace falta para estar en la vanguardia, tratando de conquistar nuevos campos.

En “Unfinished” se abordará la aplicación a la arquitectura actual de nociones como las de reasignación, adaptabilidad o reapropiación. Doce de los proyectos expuestos han sido escogidos en convocatoria pública; podían ubicarse en situaciones reales o desarrollarse en situaciones arquitectónicas genéricas relacionadas con las circunstancias reconocibles en la coyuntura actual. Sobre las 108 propuestas que se recibieron, un jurado compuesto por Iñaqui Carnicero y Carlos Quintáns, Santiago de Molina, Jacobo García-Germán y Ángel Martínez García-Posada realizó una primera selección de una veintena proyectos. Dentro de estos finalistas, el jurado escogió ocho ganadores y otorgó mención a otros cuatro que no forman parte de la exposición, aunque sus autores presentarán sus proyectos en público como parte de las actividades del pabellón.

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New Material From Harvard Researchers

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Folds and Changes Shape On Its Own

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Imagine a house that could fit in a backpack or a wall that could become a window with the flick of a switch.

Harvard researchers have designed a new type of foldable material that is versatile, tunable, and self-actuated. It can change size, volume, and shape; it can fold flat to withstand the weight of an elephant without breaking, and pop right back up to prepare for the next task.

The research was led by Katia Bertoldi, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS); James Weaver, senior research scientist at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University; and Chuck Hoberman of the Graduate School of Design. It is described in Nature Communications.

“We’ve designed a 3-D, thin-walled structure that can be used to make foldable and reprogrammable objects of arbitrary architecture, whose shape, volume, and stiffness can be dramatically altered and continuously tuned and controlled,” said Johannes T.B. Overvelde, a graduate student in Bertoldi’s lab and first author of the paper.

 

 

The structure is inspired by an origami technique called snapology, and is made from extruded cubes with 24 faces and 36 edges. Like origami, the cube can be folded along its edges to change shape. The team demonstrated, both theoretically and experimentally by a centimeter-scale prototype, that the cube can be deformed into many different shapes by folding certain edges, which act like hinges. The team embedded pneumatic actuators into the structure, which can be programmed to deform specific hinges, changing the cube’s shapes and size, and removing the need for external input.

The team connected 64 of these individual cells to create a 4-by-4-by-4 cube that can grow, and shrink, change its shape globally, change the orientation of its microstructure, and fold completely flat. As the structure changes shape, it also changes stiffness — meaning one could make a material that’s very pliable or very stiff using the same design. These actuated changes in material properties add a fourth dimension to the material. “We do not only understand how the material deforms, but also have an actuation approach that harnesses this understanding,” said Bertoldi. “We know exactly what we need to actuate in order to get the shape we want.”

The material can be embedded with any kind of actuator, including thermal, dielectric, or even water.

 

Learn more about the new material in the Harvard Gazette.

News via Harvard

La nit dels Museus

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Te’ls trobaràs oberts.

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 A les 19 h del dissabte 21 de maig, els museus no tanquen les portes: te les obren de franc i et conviden a conèixer les seves col·leccions d’una altra manera: de nit!

I hi passaran coses. Perquè, a més de visitar les exposicions amb una altra llum, podràs gaudir de concerts, performances, visites guiades, espectacles, tallers i activitats per a tota la família.

Enguany, les Fàbriques de creació de Barcelona col·laboren amb la Nit dels Museus. Creació & Museus és el nom d’una iniciativa que vincula un espai de creació amb un museu de la ciutat per tal de crear, des de les diferents disciplines, una producció artística relacionada amb la temàtica del museu o amb l’espai patrimonial concret.

No és l’única novetat. També, per primer cop, el Gabinet Postal, titular de la col·lecció filatèlica Ramon Marull, participa en la Nit dels Museus. Estigues atent al segell, perquè sis museus de la ciutat acolliran reproduccions en gran format d’algunes de les joies de la col·lecció. Sabràs reconèixer-les?

Del port de Barcelona al Tibidabo i del Besòs al Llobregat, seran un total de sis rutes i més de vuitanta centres de Barcelona, Badalona, Cornellà, Esplugues, l’Hospitalet, Sant Adrià i Santa Coloma. Aquest any, donem la benvinguda al Jardí Botànic, el Museu Etnològic de Barcelona i The Gaudí Exhibition Center – Museu Diocesà de Barcelona, tres centres que es reincorporen a la Nit dels Museus, i a la Fundació Mies van der Rohe, la Fundació Ramón Pla Armengol i el Palau Güell, que se sumen al projecte, juntament amb un nou espai del Museu de Badalona: el Conducte d’Aigües.

La Nit dels Museus és una iniciativa del Consell d’Europa que enguany arriba a la dotzena edició i en què participen més de quatre mil museus de quaranta països europeus.

Vine i deixa’t sorprendre!

 

Enllaços relacionats

Día Internacional de los Museos
(Generalitat De Catalunya)
patrimoni.gencat.cat

Día Internacional de los Museos
(Red de Museos Locales de la Diputació de Barcelona)
museuslocals.diba.cat

La Nuit des Musées
(Ministerio de Cultura y Comunicación de Francia)
www.nuitdesmusees.fr

 

 

RIBA Announces Longlist of 30 Buildings for Inaugural International Prize

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This is the first RIBA Award to be open to any qualified architect in the world.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has announced its longlist of 30 buildings to be considered for the inaugural RIBA International Prize. According to the organization, “Projects range from large urban infrastructure schemes to private residential projects; cultural destinations to civic spaces; academic buildings to places of worship. The RIBA International Prize will be awarded to the most significant and inspirational building of the year. The winning building will demonstrate visionary, innovative thinking and excellence of execution, whilst making a distinct contribution to its users and to its physical context.” This is the first RIBA Award to be open to any qualified architect in the world.

The 30 long-listed buildings will be visited over the summer by the RIBA awards committee, after which, the list will be reduced to 20 winners of RIBA Awards for International Excellence. Subsequently, six finalists will be chosen and visited by a Grand Jury in the fall. According to RIBA, “[Awards for International Excellence] will be given to buildings worldwide that stretch the boundaries of architecture. Irrespective of style, complexity and size of both scheme and budget successful projects should demonstrate visionary or innovative thinking and excellence of execution.” The Grand Jury is being lead by Richard Rogers and includes Billie Tsien, Kunlé Adeyemi, Philip Gumuchdjian, and Marilyn Jordan Taylor.

“It is a huge honour and responsibility to consider work for premiation,” said Billie Tsien. “Of importance to me personally is the opportunity to recognize work of integrity, both aesthetically and in the value system under which it is made.”

For this inaugural year of the RIBA International Prize, buildings entered for consideration were completed in a three year period (between January 1, 2013 – February 1, 2016), but in subsequent years the prize will consider buildings completed only within two years. RIBA has been giving architectural awards since 1966, including the Royal Gold Medal, RIBA House of the Year, and RIBA Stirling Prize. The winner of the latter will represent the United Kingdom in the International Prize.

“We have been delighted with the response to our inaugural RIBA International Prize, which has brought a huge range of exceptional entries from all around the globe,” said RIBA President, Jane Duncan. “It will be fascinating to see insights from the judges and entrants into the power and value of great architecture, wherever you are in the world.”

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Cerdà: the beginning of urbanism

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Hi walkers!

cerda

Today we show you an extract from our tour BARCELONA & ILDEFONS CERDÀ

In Summer of 1859, the Barcelona of today started its journey with the approval of the project of its expansion and with two historical initiatives: the first personal of its designer Ildefons Cerdà went beyond the concrete reality to create the General Theory of Urbanization and the second one of the city of Barcelona to denounce and discredit this progressively-minded Engineer.

THE EXAMPLE. A PRACTICAL CASE

A quadrangular mesh of 133 x 133 m without hierarchies or outskirts, with block of 113 x 113m connecting and absorbing the neighboring, with no more limits than the geographic. With a final size of 9 x 3 Km.

A project based in his theoretical autonomy

The shape of the example is the result of the systematize analysis of the requirements of traffic, hygiene, of the regional structure of the viability and of the equality between human being, defining his quadrangular layout with a absolute, powerful and autonomous way.

The Gran Via as the territorial axis between the two rivers Llobregat and Besos, parallel to the sea and tangent to the old city, is the Master piece of his plan.

“Before Cerda the grid, after Cerda the Urbanism” – Story of Leonardo and Mondrian

Come with us and learn something more about Cerdá and enjoy discovering the origins of the modern Barcelona!

Book here

 

 

Open day – 2016 International Museum Day

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International Museum Day

 

Open day

The worldwide community of museums will celebrate International Museum Day on and around 18 May 2016.The theme of 2016 International Museum Day will be Museums and Cultural Landscapes.The objective of International Museum Day is to raise awareness of the fact that, “Museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples.” Organised on and around 18 May each year, the events and activities planned to celebrate International Museum Day can last a day, a weekend or a whole week. Participation in International Museum Day is growing among museums all over the world. In 2015, more than 35,000 museums participated in the event in some 145 countries, whith activities and open day.

 

El Museu del Disseny celebra el Dia Internacional dels Museus oferint entrada gratuïta a les seves exposicions. Podreu visitar les exposicions permanents del Museu del Disseny:

Del món al museu. Disseny de producte, patrimoni cultural
Extraordinàries! Col·leccions d’arts decoratives i arts d’autor (segles III–XX)
El cos vestit. Siluetes i moda (1550-2015)
El disseny gràfic: d’ofici a professió (1940-1980)

El Dia Internacional dels Museus (DIM)  és un esdeveniment organitzat pel Comitè Internacional dels Museus (ICOM) des del 1977, que té com a objectiu conscienciar els ciutadans sobre el paper dels museus en el desenvolupament de la societat.

L’edició d’enguany està dedicada al tema Museus i Paisatges Culturals, tot reconeixent el paper que juguen els museus en l’educació i l’enriquiment de les cultures, els intercanvis culturals, i en la interrelació i la cooperació dels diferents pobles del món.

 

Museu del Disseny de Barcelona
Pl. de les Glòries Catalanes, 37-38 08018 Barcelona

Tel. (34) 93 256 68 00

[email protected]

Converses d’Arquitectura

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GRAN, dotzena i última trobada del cicle ‘Converses d’Arquitectura’

GRAN

El proper dijous 19 de maig a les 19h donem pas a la dotzena i última taula del cicle organitzat des d’Arquitectes per l’Arquitectura, al voltant de la temàtica ‘GRAN’. La trobada serà a l’espai Barcelona Trespa Design Center, davant del Mercat del Born (c. de La Ribera, 5)

Hi participaran Addenda (González/Hinz/Zabala), Archikubik i Bogdan & Van Broeck, que mostraran exemples de la seva arquitectura per il·lustrar el tema del debat.

Moderarà la taula l’Ariadna Perich, arquitecta, professora de Projectes i sots-directora de Cultura a l’ETSAB. Després d’una breu presentació i una vegada els ponents hagin explicat les seves obres, ajudarà a guiar un debat que ens ajudi a aprofundir en situacions on arquitectures que possiblement en un passat proper haguéssin semblat de tamany mig, per l’actual manca d’intervencions agafen més rellevància i acaben pujant, per comparació, la qualifiació de la seva escala tot i tenir la mateixa entitat.

La trobada té una duració prevista de 1h 30min. L’aforament serà lliure fins a esgotar les places.

Durant l’acte i al seu acabament Trespa oferirà als assistents la beguda i els snacks de cortesia habituals.

Per a qualsevol dubte, poseu-vos en contacte amb nosaltres a través del correu

[email protected]

Sant Martí tendrá la primera ‘supermanzana’.

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El Ayuntamiento de Barcelona quiere que, además de coches, por las calles pasen “otras cosas”.

supermanzana

El Gobierno municipal ha presentado un plan de superilles —supermanzanas en catalán— para ganar espacio peatonal en ciertas zonas del Eixample, es decir, todo el área que concentra el plan Cerdà que amplió la ciudad en el S. XIX.

Las superillas consisten en un perímetro de manzanas donde las calles que quedan dentro tendrán una reducción del tráfico privado importante. La circulación estará limitada a 10 kilómetros por hora y habrá días en los que el corte será total. La idea es ganar espacio para peatones, para que los viandantes recuperen sitio en la ciudad y para poder poner más zonas verdes. En total el objetivo es llegar al 94% de espacio peatonal dentro del recinto. Todo será estudiado en función de pruebas e intervenciones por fases, por eso, según la teniente de alcalde Janet Sanz y concejala de Medio Ambiente, no se puede concretar cuántos carriles se cortarán, por ejemplo. Las actuaciones no exigen grandes obras ni actuaciones urbanas, sino, “repensar la ciudad”, defiende el Ayuntamiento.

El plan está pensado para cumplir las demandas europeas de reducción de la contaminación, muy altas en Barcelona, y que causan “3.000 muertes año en el área metropolitana”, según Sanz. También para intentar cumplir el objetivo de reducir en toda la ciudad un 21% los desplazamientos en tráfico privado y a la vez aumentar los que se hacen a pie y en transporte público. Por eso, las actuaciones se tendrán que coordinar con la nueva red de autobuses, según ha explicado Mercedes Vidal, concejala de Movilidad.

En el caso concreto de Sant Martí, el grupo de manzanas elegido está delimitado al norte por la calle Tánger, el límite por la izquierda la calle Badajoz y por la derecha Bilbao. De aquí a 2019 se irán experimentando limitaciones en todo el distrito y lo demás no está concretado hasta el próximo mandato municipal. “Estamos en una parte previa de urbanismo táctico y empoderamiento ciudadano”, ha defendido Sanz.

El plan estará consensuado con plataformas vecinales y entidades, por lo que aún está muy en el aire. “Nada de estas cosas podrán pasar si no hay un trabajo previo participativo. No es solo diseñar qué pasará en esta calle o en esta otra, por eso no queremos poner fechas. Hasta que eso no sea posible, es un modelo teórico. No planteamos calendarios herméticos”, ha añadido la edil. Lo único que está claro es que en ese distrito antes de 2019 se pasará de un 8,7% de calles “pacificadas” al 58%.

El Pais

Winy Maas Iaac Spring Lecture Series 2016

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Winy Maas MVRDV/The Why Factory

Winy Maas

Winy Maas is an architect, urban designer and landscape architect and one of the co-founding directors of the globally operating architecture and urban planning firm MVRDV, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, known for projects such as the Expo 2000, the vision for greater Paris, Grand Paris Plus Petit, and more recently the Market Hall in Rotterdam.

Maas is professor at and director of The Why Factory, a research institute for the future city, he founded in 2008 at TU Delft. He is currently Visiting Professor at IIT Chicago and the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium and has been at the University of Hong Kong, ETH Zurich, Berlage Institute, MIT, Ohio State and Yale University. In addition he designs stage sets, objects and was curator of Indesem 2007. He curates exhibitions, lectures throughout the world and takes part in international juries. With both MVRDV and The Why Factory he has published a series of research projects.

IAAC Lecture Series 2015/16

Tuesday 17th of May
Winy Maas
MVRDV/The Why Factory

Works and Projects

@ 19.30, IAAC Auditorium
Open to the Public

See event

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