Among the star architects, the British David Chipperfield (London, 1953) is one of those who have rehabilitated the most iconic historical buildings. Before winning the Pritzker –the Nobel of architects– in 2023, Chipperfield received the Mies van der Rohe award for the restoration of the Neues Museum in Berlin, and later made history again in the same city with the recovery of the Neue Galerie, by Mies van der Rohe. In his rehabilitations, Chipperfield is delicate, meticulous and, when necessary, forceful, as can be seen in his most recent work, the Faro Santander cultural center, which opens its doors this Tuesday in Santander.

Many times the artists' desire to maintain creative freedom can exceed the expectations of an official commission. When the French General Tourism Commissioner, Charles Duprat, invited eleven Catalan and Spanish photographers to spend time in Paris, his goal was to obtain "artist images," but it backfired. Those artists, among whom were Joan Colom, Gabriel Cualladó, Eugeni Forcano, Paco Gómez, Ramon Masats, Oriol Maspons, and Xavier Miserachs, did their own thing rather than the pleasant photographs he expected. In the midst of the Franco regime, those artists were captivated by the life and freedoms of the Parisians, who could kiss in public, which captivated Joan Colom, and protest, a sovereign activity that caught the attention of Ramon Masats.

Focus reaches 40 years in a golden moment. Last season, the four theaters of the Focus Group, the Romea, the Condal, La Villarroel and the Goya, reached a record figure in attendance (534,000 spectators) and revenue (14.7 million euros). 68 shows were presented there, with 1,402 performances held. "There have already been five years of good fortune and on this journey, from record to record, today we have added a new challenge that forces us not to lose our stride, maintain the pace and reach next August with the satisfaction of a job well done," said the group's president, Daniel Martínez, this Friday. "In moments of peak social and political discontent, culture and, especially, theater, offers us moments of emotional rationality and intelligent entertainment, which allow us to take a breath to endure all this series of existential crises that make up our day-to-day life," added Martínez.

After two years of construction, the Palace of the Marquis of Alfarràs, at the Laberint d’Horta Park in Barcelona, reopened its doors to the public in 2025, for a few days a week. From the outside, the palace looks like an orientalist fantasy. But inside it is very different. At the heart of the building, there is still the 11th-century watchtower that gave it its origin, and some traces of the splendor it once had coexist with the renovation that saved it, the work of the studio ONL Arquitectura. In fact, throughout the tour, the different layers of the building's history are visible. Now the palace hosts an exhibition, Re-Edificatory Atlas, by architectural photographer Adrià Goula (Barcelona, 1973), which fits like a glove. It includes a series of his photographs of renovations carried out over the last fifteen years, of buildings including the Sala Beckett, the El Nacional restaurant, the Teatre Arnau, and the Mercat del Ninot. These are images that dialogue with works by eight artists, among whom are David Bestué, Carlos Bunga, Mario Santamaría, and Luz Broto.

It is a time of containment and reflection in the field of design, as can be seen until September 6 at DHub in the exhibition of the winning projects of the 43rd edition of the Delta Awards 2026, promoted by the Industrial Design Association of FAD (ADI-FAD). "A widespread concern in design is to make small improvements to existing objects, not to create new needs –points out Jordi Blasi, designer and board member of ADI-FAD–. The awarded projects are not distinguished by aesthetics nor are they elitist, but rather they fulfill a social function".

For photographer Tanit Plana, technological advances are "very stimulating". She began working with AI a few years ago, always trying to maintain a critical stance. "I am not on the side of the apocalyptic people who think AI will annihilate us, because I don't think that will happen, but I am also not at the other extreme, that of using it without any awareness or responsibility," states Plana. Thanks to books like the one she recommends, "Atlas of AI: Power, politics, and planetary costs of artificial intelligence, by Kate Crawford, published by Ned Ediciones, Plana manages to make her works reveal "the power structures and functioning of AI". "I have no intention of making images that look photographic. The images I create with AI must always show and point towards the violence exerted by the artificial intelligence system itself," says the artist.

At 96 years old, the American Jasper Johns (Augusta, Georgia, 1930) remains one of the most important contemporary artists. He was one of the precursors of pop art, with paintings of United States flags and the bronze sculpture of two beer cans, but he is also remembered for Painting with Two Balls, a mockery of the testosteronic excesses of abstract expressionist artists, such as Pollock, De Kooning, and Rothko. These works are just the tip of the iceberg of Night driver, the major retrospective that the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is dedicating to him until October 12.

Actor Jordi Vidal, known for shows like Guillermotta, Estimadíssims malvats and For Evita, has a luxury literary recommender: his brother Xavier is the founder of the Nollegiu bookstore. "I trust everything he recommends," he points out. For the readers of ARA, he chooses the latest book recommended by his brother: Punt d'aranya, by the Galician author Nerea Pallares, published in Spanish by Libros del Asteroide and in Catalan by Edicions del Periscopi – with translation by Eduard Velasco. "I really liked it for the mix of female power and Galician legends," says Vidal, who avoids giving too many plot details to avoid spoilers, although the author did in this interview with ARA, in which she also denounced that women are not allowed "to be angry or violent."

Between the work on stage and her vocation as a teacher, actress Mariona Castillo doesn't stop. This summer she wants to rest for a few days before starting rehearsals for the musical L'alegria que passa, Dagoll Dagom's latest musical, which will be performed in Shanghai in September. And in February next year, she will return with another revival, the musical Germans de sang. When recommending a book, Castillo's heart is divided between Marta Orriols' novel Aprendre a parlar amb les plantes(Edicions del Periscopi) and the graphic novel El cel al cap, by Antonio Altarriba, Sergio García and Lola Moral (Norma Editorial), which was one of the 10 best comics of 2023 by ARA.

Actress Berta Giraut is one of the most multifaceted and restless figures on the Catalan scene, and one of the most literary. In addition to dedicating herself to acting, in 2020 she published the poetry collection "Com l'estel que no hi és" (El Gall Editor), and she has also directed, is the author of several theatrical texts, and works as a teacher of diction and oral expression. Her latest show as an actress is "L’última entrevista (Roig/Capmany)", in which she has stepped into the shoes of Montserrat Roig in an interview with Maria Aurèlia Capmany, who is played by Anna Güell. It was one of the successes of the past Grec festival and is scheduled to return in May 2027. "In all these works there is a lot of love for poetry, and lately I have investigated a lot about the dialogue between poetry and theater," explains Giraut. The book she recommends is a novel "very hard but very sincere and very authentic": "Génie la boja", by Inès Cagnati (Quid Pro Quo Edicions). "It is a very brief novel, it seems like a poem. It reaches your heart directly, and we lack things that truly touch our soul," says Giraut.

Dromedaries are not native to the Balearic Islands, but, nevertheless, they have been exploited as a tourist attraction. Architect Olga Subirós, curator of the DHub's major exhibition Matter matters, recommends an essay on one of these cases, Treinta mil dromedarios, by writer and traveler Patricia Almarcegui, published by H&O Editorial. Almarcegui recalls the story of Mohammed, one of the three dromedaries brought to Mallorca in the 1960s. "From what might seem like a simple anecdote, the author tells us about the beginning of a process of touristification that still endures, based on exoticization, over-urbanization, and resource exploitation," explains Subirós. The book's title refers to the fact that Almarcegui discovered Mohammed's story on a postcard of which around 30,000 copies were made, with an image showing Mohammed on a beach carrying three women in swimsuits. "It is a brief book with humor and irony, but also with a clear ecological and social conscience," says Subirós.

Maria Buhigas, head architect of Barcelona City Council, talks about her reading with contagious enthusiasm. She assures that she can have up to twenty books on her nightstand, from comics to essays. One after another, she reads them all. The last one she finished is an essay in English that she bought almost ten years ago, Ninety percent of everything [The 90% of everything], by Rose George. "I alternate books that are a bit more freaky with novels and other more frivolous readings to pass the time," says Buhigas. "When I was young, I read many classics – she adds – and now I am very interested in contemporary novels and essays." The book that Buhigas recommends, Solito, by Javier Zamora, published in Catalan by Edicions del Periscopi; it is one of the books that allows her to discover other realities.

The photographs of the North American Minor White (1908-1976) are like strips of his skin. "All his work is very personal," explains Carlos Gollonet, the photography curator at the Mapfre Foundation and curator of the exhibition of the photographer that can be seen at the KBr center until September 6. "In his photographs it is impossible to discover what his feelings were, but they are nonetheless permeated by his way of transmitting emotions and of making the viewer a participant in his vision of photography, which goes beyond what is seen in the photographed image – explains Gollonet–. At that time it was very innovative that he left a space for the viewer to complete the photograph with their emotions, memories, and experiences."

The architect couple formed by Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats, known for being the authors of Sala Beckett in Barcelona, continues to receive international recognition. After the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, the Arc en Rêve architecture center in Bordeaux has welcomed them with open arms, and until January 17th, it dedicates a major exhibition to them based on their vision of how to intervene in historic buildings. Emotional heritage is three times larger than the space they had at the Venetian Arsenal. On the opening night, the auditorium was packed, and the audience began to applaud before Flores and Prats started speaking. Afterwards, a dinner of honor with paella (à la française).

The darkest side of 20th-century America: boredom, loneliness, racial segregation, and inequality. Photographer Robert Frank marked a turning point in the history of photography with Americans, a photo album with which he revealed the fractures of North American society. He said he wanted to make the invisible visible. His photographs are full of downcast gazes and anonymous characters, those who do not usually appear in photographs. There are also many record players,which the poet Allen Ginsberg said looked like hearses. "My photographs speak of the anxiety and misery of people on the social periphery, of black and white, of a sometimes evident despair," said Frank. The book stirred up a storm among the most conservative and they branded it anti-American. The 83 photographs that make it up, out of the 28,000 he took, can be seen for the first time in Spain at the Telefónica Foundation in Madrid in one of the main exhibitions of the 29th edition of the PhotoEspaña festival. "The American flags mark the four parts of the book, but they are always wrinkled, or even dirty," points out Maria Brancós, head of exhibitions and collections at the Telefónica Foundation. "Frank subverts American symbols and uses clichés in a very passionate way," points out Brancós. "The Americans is a very brave act, it marked Frank for life", he adds.

The Japanese-American artist Ruth Asawa (1926-2013) had every obstacle against her. But she succeeded, becoming one of the most important American sculptors of the second half of the 20th century, as can be seen in the retrospective dedicated to her by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao until September 13, organized by MoMA San Francisco and MoMA New York, in collaboration with the Guggenheim New York. Asawa carved out her own niche with weightless sculptures made of woven wire, evocative of plant and marine forms. These are transparent, porous works. They are very often hung from the ceiling. And an extraordinary feature of her working method was that she integrated it into her family life.

The artist and patron Teresa Vall Palou, considered a benchmark of abstract painting, died on Sunday at the age of 75, as reported by the Vallpalou Foundation, of which she was president. The artist's death occurred just a few months after several shows of recognition: the Miguel Marcos gallery in Barcelona dedicated the exhibition El vitalisme del color to her in May, and in March, this same gallery, Bonart Cultural and the Tomás y Valiente Art Center in Fuenlabrada (Madrid) had jointly organized the exhibition about the artist the exhibition about the artist Atmosferes cromàtiques.Vall Palou's painting is characterized by its introspective and experimental nature. "His painting, both rigorous and instinctive, is part of a line of organic abstraction in which nature, biology, and color are fundamental elements", could be read in the presentation text ofThe Vitalism of Color. In Vall Palou's compositions, color, gesture, and matter are key, with which he wanted to express intimate emotions and tensions. “I don't like easy art. I believe in difficulty, one must take risks”, said the artist, who participated in numerous individual and collective exhibitions in Catalonia and the rest of Spain, in France, and in Germany. His work is present in institutions such as the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Barcelona, the Public Library of Lleida, and Acció Cultural del País Valencià.

"I saw her and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I don't remember how I explained my presence or my camera, but I do remember that she didn't ask me any questions." The photographer Dorothea Lange recalled in these words how she took her most famous photograph and one of the most iconic of the 20th century; Migrant Mother, a portrait of Florence Owens Thompson and three of her seven children. As can be seen in the exhibition dedicated to her by the XIV Xavier Miserachs Photography Biennial at the Bòbila Cultural Space in Palafrugell from this Sunday until October 18, this photograph is the culmination of how Lange progressively approached this woman, who was struggling to survive in a camp in Nipomo (California), while her husband and one of her children had gone to the city to have the car's radiator repaired so they could continue their journey. "There have been many women photographers, but unfortunately they are much less known than men. Dorothea Lange is an essential photographer in the history of photography," affirms the director of the Biennial, Maria Planas. "She worked with a Graflex camera, which was very heavy. She had polio when she was seven years old and managed to take all these photographs despite having mobility problems, which she concealed very well," says Planas.

The 50th edition of the Grec Festival will conclude this Friday with 144,714 spectators, approximately 16,000 more than in 2025, as reported this Thursday by the Councilor for Culture of the Barcelona City Council, Xavier Marcé, and the director of the Grec Festival, Leticia Martín. This Thursday and Friday will feature the last performances of this edition at the Montjuïc amphitheater, specifically the show "Um julgamento", starring Wagner Moura. As Martín assures, the main reason for the increase in audience is that there have been "more sessions at the Grec Theatre", which has a capacity of around 1,950 seats. The festival's average attendance has been 71%, 9% less than in 2025, a decrease that Martín attributes to the fact that this year there were "larger venues" such as the Teatre Apolo that were not fully occupied. This edition, over 200,000 tickets were put on sale, while last year it was 164,000.

Shaved and with short hair like a recruit, the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura almost goes unnoticed. The star of the series Narcos, nominated for an Oscar for his role to The secret agent, it is in Barcelona to finish this edition of the Grec Festival with A judgment [A trial], the show directed by Christiane Jatahy and written in collaboration with Moura himself and fellow actor Danilo Grangheia. The show, which can be seen this Thursday and Friday at the Teatre Grec, resumes the story of the protagonist of An enemy of the people, the doctor Thomas Stockmann, played by Moura himself. Two years after the end of Henrik Ibsen's play, the character returns to his city to demand a neutral process to prove his positions. On stage, this is realized by the fact that each night the character undergoes the judgment of eleven people who have registered before the performance and are randomly selected to form a jury.