The "deep beauty" of Enric Miralles's buildings

BarcelonaThe Gas Tower, of'Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue, is visible from many points in Barcelona. One of the most iconic views is this skyscraper, now called Torre Marenostrum, framed by the Arc de Triomf. Mirrorsand is part of the DocsBarcelona festival program. Tickets for this Tuesday are sold out, but there will be another screening on the 17th at the Renoir Floridablanca cinema, and the documentary is scheduled to hit theaters in September.

"I contacted a lot of people who knew him, and I immediately realized that Miralles was a character for a film," explains Maria Mauti. "I was very affected by the fact that Miralles died very young and because he is buried in one of his masterpieces [Cemetery Nine]. I felt that his life and his work are forever connected, and that in the documentary we could show a part of his life in each of the works we chose." Among the works are—in addition to the Marenostrum Tower—Miralles and Tagliabue's home, the Santa Caterina market, and the Scottish Parliament, all three the result of the Enric Miralles Benedetta Tagliabue (EMBT) studio. In addition to the Igualada cemetery, Mauti delves into other projects from Miralles's first phase with Carme Pinós, such as the Morella school-home, the Hostalets de Balenyà civic center, and the Huesca Sports Palace. The latter was highly publicized because its roof collapsed during the final phase of construction.

In her conversations with acquaintances of Miralles, who died prematurely in 2000 at the age of 45 from a brain tumor, Mauti encountered a "somewhat mythical" figure. So she tried to go beyond that fixed idea: based on a book by critic James Lord on Giacometti, the director presents the documentary, which she co-wrote with writer Sara Mesa, as a novel in eleven movements and without an ending. All of this is an evocation of Miralles's own architecture, which played with what she found in the places where she built, chance and the unfinished. "There is a political aspect to this politics that is giving value to beauty, to a profound beauty, because beauty is a value as old as the world, because it can change people, improve them, so it can have a very powerful cultural and political value," says the director.

With previously unreleased home footage

The origin of the documentary, which is an Oberon Media production, dates back to 2019. Another key element of the film is that Tagliabue made available to the director a series of unreleased home movies. "I wanted to make a specialized film. I wanted to go further, and look for something invisible, a beauty that may not be in the foreground, but that is very present in his works, and bring it to light for everyone," he adds. Before Barcelona, Mirrors It was shown at several festivals, such as the Malaga Film Festival. Filmin and TV3 are also participating in the production, so there will be even more opportunities to see it.