The Ramon Llull Institute rethinks the Catalan pavilion of the Architecture Biennale

BarcelonaChange of script in the Catalan pavilion of the Venice Architecture Biennale, promoted by the Institut Ramon Llull. According to what ARA has been able to find out, the Llull is pausing to rethink it and add partners, among whom may be the Barcelona City Council, the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya and the Departament de Territori. Initially, the pavilion for the next edition will not be part of the official program as a collateral event of the Biennale. And instead of a project selected through a competition, as is usual, the Llull will bring to its space at Docks Cantieri Cucchini an adapted version of the exhibition Seny i rauxa. News of Catalan architecture, currently on display at the Dhub until September 6. The exhibition is a production of the Barcelona City Council within Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture.

The objective of this rethinking is, as the director of the Institut Ramon Llull, Anna Guitart, explains, "to make an investment for the future". "Everyone has welcomed us with open arms and with great enthusiasm to collaborate, and also thinking that perhaps we can do it in a slightly different way", says Guitart. The different teams will begin working in September. It is pending to define whether the collaboration will be economic or of another type. And the forecast is that the Catalan pavilion will once again be one of the collateral events of the 2029 Architecture Biennale.

Guitart assures that making the decision not to call for a competition has been "painful", but that they have made it because they had the feeling that, beyond the Llull itself, "the different agents in the sector also had more to say". "For us, it is very important to make this gesture – says Guitart –. We believe it makes perfect sense, because the Catalan pavilion of the Architecture Biennale is a country project, and we understand that the sector agrees with it and feels represented. Now, sometimes we felt we were doing it a bit alone". Thus, according to the director of the Llull, the decision is not motivated by the reception that the different projects they have presented in Venice in recent years may have had. "That's another debate. I know that many times it has been difficult to choose one of the candidates, and that one year one is liked more than another, but that is another debate", specifies Guitart.

Even so, the Llull will continue to support the participation of Catalan and Balearic architects in the central exhibition of the Architecture Biennale, still pending selection by the artistic directors, the Chinese architect couple formed by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu. The theme of the next edition will be "Architecture in action. For the possibility of coexistence in the face of a real reality".The 25th anniversary of Llull

The touring of Seny i rauxa in Venice will coincide with the 25th anniversary of Ramon Llull. This exhibition is curated by Joan Roig, Carme Ribas, and Victòria Garriga, who have reviewed Catalan architecture of the last 150 years based on the dichotomy between prudence and passion. "We would not have chosen Seny i rauxa if it had been a monographic exhibition; we do not want to favor a single study. We have chosen it because it is a collection of Catalan architecture, and we believe that this fits into the context of our anniversary," says Guitart. Regarding the adaptation of the exhibition, the Docks Cantieri Cucchini space is one-third of the Dhub hall where it can currently be seen, and replicas of the most delicate materials will be made because these nautical warehouses do not have the same conditions as a museum hall.The exhibition Seny i rauxa is structured in various areas: the room, the house, neighboring houses, buildings, the street, the old city, the new city, and the territory. "The exhibition has three objectives: the first is to show in a single space the best of Catalan architecture of the last 150 years; the second is to try to demonstrate that there is a thread of continuity that defines it, and the third is to bring out things that are not normally shown and, therefore, renew the canon of Catalan architecture," states Joan Roig. "There are two types of canons in Catalan architecture and, in general, in architecture. One is formed by names: Gaudí, Bohigas, the GATCPAC, Miralles. In the exhibition they are present, but they are like trees that cast a shadow on what surrounds them, and we also wanted to move away from totems," explains Roig, who for this reason speaks of other names such as Alfons Soldevila, Pere Benavent de Barberà, and Raimon Duran i Reynals.