The portfolio of the Mies van der Rohe Award once again delves into the service vocation of architects and their capacity to respond to the environmental and social challenges of the current world. The winner of this year's edition, announced this Thursday in Oulu (Finland), is the renovation of the Charleroi Exhibition Palace convention center (Belgium), by AgwA (Brussels) and Architecten Jan de Vylder Inge Vinck (Ghent). This involves the rehabilitation of a 1950s building with a limited budget, in line with the trend that interventions on existing buildings have a lower environmental impact than demolition and new construction. The rehabilitation of the Charleroi Exhibition Palace has prevailed over the rehabilitation of the old Vapor Cortès for Prodis, by the Vallesano studio Harquitectes.

The judge from Huesca has set a deadline of 56 weeks, just over a year, for the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) to return the murals from the chapter house of the Sijena monastery. The resolution, dated last Friday, has already been notified to the Aragonese and Catalan institutions, and was made public this Monday. The deadline expires on May 10, 2027. MNAC sources indicate that the museum will not make any statements about this resolution and that its lawyers will study it. The judge has set a deadline of five business days for them to file a motion for reconsideration, without interrupting the execution or the deadlines.

For Aurelia Muñoz (Barcelona, 1926-2011), art was like "a small miracle", as she herself said. “You don't know what's happening, but it's done. Even when you've been looking at it for a while, you say: «How did I do this?» You can't even explain it”, explained Muñoz, who would have turned a hundred years old this Monday. After decades in a certain oblivion –Catalonia is a country with a very short memory for its artists–, she returned to the forefront when the MoMA in New York bought three of her works in 2018. This fact consolidated her as one of the key figures of textile art in the second half of the 20th century and as a pioneer who expanded its limits with sculptures that transform the space where they are located and that propose a sensory experience.

The architectural transformation of Olot's old town is unstoppable. "There had been so many plans that the residents were tired and wanted action," says architect Eduard Callís, the founder with Guillem Moliner of the studio Un Parell d'Arquitectes. This studio is responsible for a major recent project, the Pla de places i placetes of Olot. This Saturday, Callís guided the public through these works during a visit organized by the Group of Architects for the Defense and Intervention in Architectural Heritage (AADIPA) of the College of Architects of Catalonia. The most recent of these works are the Jardins de la Muralla, the result of injecting life into "a kind of empty space" that emerged from the demolition of a residential building about twenty years ago. "There were only two rows of plane trees and a esplanade, and the residents were very interested in transforming the place into a garden, and in this garden connecting the city with the river," says the architect. The inauguration is scheduled for May 8.

Sometimes, life takes precedence over art. In a 1957 self-portrait, the Ampurdán painter and pedagogue Esther Boix (1927-2014), one of the most important of her generation, is a sad woman. Beside her is her husband, the poet Ricard Creus, equally contrite. Both have strangely elongated necks, as if Francoism were infiltrating their bodies and deforming them, as can be seen from this Friday at the exhibition that the Fundació Vila Casas dedicates to Esther Boix at the Espais Volart, titledEsther Boix. A World in Struggle. This is the most ambitious retrospective ever dedicated to her, and an unmissable exhibition.

Shocked by the German bombing of April 26, 1937, on the Basque city, Pablo Picasso painted the Guernica in the studio he had on the rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris, between May 1 and June 4, 1937. The painting was commissioned by the Spanish government for the Republic's pavilion at the Paris Universal Exposition, and Picasso decided on this subject when he saw the photographs of the bombing reproduced in the French press, specifically in L'Humanité. But, as Manuel Borja-Villel recalled when he was the director of the Reina Sofía Museum, "at the time, Guernica pleased almost no one" when it was unveiled at the pavilion, because no one expected the dramatic impact of the work. Over the years, however, Guernica has become a commemoration of the innocent victims of all wars.

Jordi Faulí (Barcelona, 1959) joined the Sagrada Familia's technical office in 1990, when the temple was not yet covered. Three years later he was appointed assistant director architect. And in 2012 he became, succeeding Jordi Bonet, the seventh director architect since Antoni Gaudí. Among the milestones of his direction are the completion of the naves and the culmination of the Tower of the Virgin Mary and the Tower of Jesus.

The artist Teresa Gancedo (Tejedo del Sil, 1937) has one foot in this world and another in that of ideas. With often humble materials, Gancedo projects herself into a spiritual world full of insects, flowers, and angels, as can be seen in the exhibition dedicated to her by Espai Vayreda in Olot until April 12th. This exhibition is the first by Vayreda Foundation. "Upon entering Teresa's studio, I perceived a filtered atmosphere and a slowed-down time, perhaps similar to what underlies the interior of a temple where our presence becomes evanescent, even weightless," recalls the exhibition curator and artistic director of the gallery, Natàlia Chocarro.

In Barcelona, some art galleries have family roots. Gallerists Silvia Sennacheribbo and Segimon Rovira i Cambra, who ran Sala Rovira, are cousins. Both continued family businesses, and now Sennacheribbo hosts the exhibition 70 Years of Sala Rovira (1942-2012) at her gallery (Enric Granados street, 106, local 1), drawing from the archive of this gallery known for its dedication to drawing and illustration. The exhibition, which is open until April 19th, includes about 80 works from the three periods of Sala Rovira by artists including Grau Sala, Lola Anglada, Ricard Opisso, Lloveras, Xavier Gosé, Rosa Serra, Torné Esquius, Carles Cardellà, Junceda, Cesc, Tatiana, and Picarol. Among the works are surprises such as a watercolor by Joan Llaverias dedicated to Joan Llimona and a drawing by Francesc Gimeno with a tribute text by the poet Josep Maria López-Picó: "Only with your effort: poor history left us no room for flattery. Only with death: you have left glory because it does not fit, to your honor, rags".

During one of his stays in Colliure, Henri Matisse painted a small-format landscape, La Moulade. With the characteristic colorist fury of Fauvism, the painting is made up of a series of vivid color patches: red, green, blue, yellow. The lines are entirely secondary. La Moulade measures only 28.6 x 35.7 centimeters, but for another Fauvist, André Derain, this painting is like "dynamite." This is recalled by Aurélie Verdier, chief curator of the Modern Collections of the National Museum of Modern Art - Centre Pompidou and also curator of the exhibition at CaixaForum Barcelona Chez Matisse. The Legacy of a New Painting, which opens its doors this Friday.

The Cuban lawyer and businessman Celso González-Falla and his wife, art conservator and patron Sondra Gilman (1926-2021), are considered among the ten best photography collectors in the world. Currently, their collection includes more than 1,700 works by over 400 artists, a hundred of which can be seen at the Toni Catany Foundation in Llucmajor (Mallorca) until April 17 in an exhibition titled Toni Catany Foundation in Llucmajor (Mallorca) until April 17 in an exhibition titled From our hearts. The Sondra Gilman and Celso González-Falla Collection. The number of great photographers represented in the exhibition, which will be open until April 17, is extraordinary, and among them are Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugène Atget, Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Bill Brand Klein, and Francesca Woodman.

The painter Santiago Rusiñol was a pioneer in the reappraisal of Doménikos Theotokópoulos, El Greco (1541-1614). In fact, he made history when, in November 1894, he carried in procession to the Cau Ferrat the two works by El Greco that he had bought in Paris from the industrialist Pau Bosch for 1,000 francs.The tears of Saint Peterand onePenitent MagdaleneNow, Greco is once again the protagonist of a major heritage news story, but with a very different tone. With their characteristic discretion, the husband-and-wife collector couple Fernando Casacuberta and Coty Marsans will present this Tuesday the acquisition of the first version of Christ on the cross del Greco (178 x 104 cm and dated between 1585 and 1590) at the headquarters of his collection, the old Sant Sever Hospital From Barcelona.

The Harquitectes studio It is experiencing a splendid moment, with six major public projects underway, two of which are the expansions of the MACBA and the MNAC. A few days after to present the MNAC project Harquitectes received the ARA award at the new headquarters of Prodis, the Terrassa-based foundation dedicated to the comprehensive care and support of adults with intellectual disabilities, mental disorders, cerebral palsy, or autism spectrum disorder. For this project, the result of the rehabilitation of former industrial buildings that were part of Vapor Cortès, Harquitectes are finalists for the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture. "The award certainly excites us, especially when I see how excited the people at Prodis are, who have undergone a great transformation with this building," says Roger Tudó, one of the studio's founders, along with Xavier Ros, David Lorente, and Josep Ricart, who is not participating in this interview.

A stark landscape in old Naples: the Centro Direzionale, the business center designed by Japanese architect Kenzō Tange in the 1980s, is a stark platform flanked by skyscrapers. Concrete everywhere. The Naples Palace of Justice comprises a low, brutalist-style building and three other towers. One side of one of the skyscrapers is painted from top to bottom with portraits, a small attempt to humanize the place. Across the road is Poggioreale prison, known as the Camorra prison, one of the most complex penitentiary centers in the country. Among all these buildings, a few months ago, stood a structure by architect Benedetta Tagliabue: the Centro Direzionale metro station, which stands as an act of rebellion against its surroundings.

On the cover of the new album, Beauty Manual (El Cohete-Sony), Rodrigo Cuevas (Oviedo, 1985) appears in a full-body cast, surrounded by four other men in similar casts. It's not entirely clear whether the image evokes a fine arts studio, Pompeian plaster casts, or if Cuevas and his companions, given everything that's happening here and everywhere, have received... "No matter how many ogres surround us, beauty will continue to exist and will survive. Beauty will survive anything, even humankind," says Rodrigo Cuevas. The album tour will reach Barcelona at the Sant Jordi Club on May 9th as part of Guitar BCN. The production will include an audience on stage, in the style of... Wine presses, the short film inspired by the program Songs with which he presented three of the album's tracks.

The artist Àngel Jové, born in Lleida in 1940 and died in October 2023Jové is considered one of the great Catalan artists of the second half of the 20th and the 21st century. He was a multifaceted artist. He was part of the groups Cogul and El Maduixer. He was one of the leading Catalan conceptual artists. He participated in the first video art piece in Spain. First deathAnd, in his own way, he was one of the leading figures of Catalan pop art. He also collaborated on some of Bigas Luna's early films, designed lighting for the Zeleste theater, and created dozens of book covers for the Anagrama publishing house. Even so, he remained a cult artist.

The engineer, urban planner, and politician Ildefons Cerdà (Centelles, 1815 - Las Caldas de Besaya, Cantabria, 1876), the architect of the Eixample district, is considered the father of modern urban planning. His legacy remains relevant today when proposing solutions to the major challenges of the modern world, as will be evident in the activities of the Ildefons Cerdà Year, which was presented this Monday at the headquarters of the College of Civil Engineers. "The first idea that stands out about Cerdà is his vision for the future. He was able to envision the city of Barcelona not as it was, but as it should be, and that it was necessary to imagine a completely new urban model," states Pere Calvet, the dean of the College of Civil Engineers. "The second idea is the city at the service of its people," he adds. "Cerdà didn't just design streets and blocks; he studied the living conditions of the population, the lack of ventilation, the density, public health. His project sought a healthier and fairer city."

The architects Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta, known as RCR, won their first competition in the Canary Islands shortly after graduating from the Vallès School of Architecture. The project was for a lighthouse at Punta de la Aldea, on the west coast of Gran Canaria, and the Olot-based team submitted an exceptional proposal: instead of a tower, they designed a horizontal structure reminiscent of an outstretched hand, with the lighthouse beam at its end. Thanks to the structure's integration into the site, RCR, who won the competition in 2017, were able to create a unique and beautiful lighthouse. the Pritzker PrizeThe architects, considered the Nobel Prize of architecture, managed to achieve the same height for the light as if they had designed a tower lower down. The lighthouse was never built, but it remains an emblem of how, at the start of projects, the RCR (Royal Council of Rectors) take nothing for granted, as can be seen in the exhibition dedicated to them by the Garrotxa Museum from this Saturday until August 9th, entitled RCR Architects: Roots and Wings. A journey from the beginning to the present.This is one of the most ambitious exhibitions of his career, which will reach its fortieth year next year, and has the added value that some of his works engage in dialogue with the paintings and sculptures in the museum's permanent collection.

Chilean architect Smiljan Radić is one of the most radical and original figures on the international scene, and he has just won the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel Prize of architecture. Born in Santiago, Chile in 1965, he is known for works such as the Casa del Poema del Angle Recte, a wood and concrete refuge in the heart of a Chilean forest, and the ephemeral pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in London, a translucent fiberglass shell that appears to float above the lawns of the Gardens. "Through a body of work situated at the crossroads of uncertainty, material experimentation, and cultural memory, Smiljan Radić prefers fragility to any unjustified claim to certainty," reads the Pritzker Prize jury's statement. "His buildings seem temporary," the citation also states, "unstable or deliberately unfinished, almost on the verge of disappearing, and yet they offer a structured, optimistic, and discreetly cheerful refuge that embraces vulnerability as an intrinsic condition of lived experience." The award comes with a prize of 100,000 euros, and the winner was announced a week late following the appearance in Jeffrey Epstein's files of Tom Pritzler, director of the Hyatt Foundation, which awards the prize.

Swiss architects Emanuel Christ (Basel, 1970) and Christoph Gantenbein (St. Gallen, 1971) trained at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) and began collaborating shortly after graduating. They are known for their innovative spirit, and in Catalonia for being the architects, along with the firm Harquitectes, of the extensions to the MACBA and the MNAC. Christ & Gantenbein is a large firm with around one hundred architects and numerous projects in Switzerland, France, Germany, China, Norway, and Mexico. They haven't ruled out maintaining an office in Barcelona once the MACBA and MNAC projects are completed. "Barcelona is a great European city. We are very excited and grateful to have the opportunity to work here," they say.