The architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales (Barcelona, 1942 - Amsterdam, 2001) has gone down in history as an extraordinary figure for how he combined the roles of architect, historian, and theorist in his profession. Among his intellectual achievements is the general direction of the 1996 congress of the International Union of Architects in Barcelona. The direction included a keynote speech, titled "Present and Futures. Architecture in Cities", which is once again relevant now that Barcelona is hosting a new edition of the congress, from June 28 to July 2. Solà-Morales laid out his theory of architecture in cities in five fully current aspects, including the transformations of urban environments and new housing models. Likewise, he considered the impact of communication and transport media on contemporary architecture and cities, what the new architectures were that responded "to the new rites of life in large cities" and what the changes were in "residual or disused areas", that is, the reflection on the terrain vague" for which he is still internationally recognized.

After fifty years of state, autonomous, and municipal governments of all political stripes, there are still educational centers with names of Francoist leaders and from the dictatorship (1923-1930) of Miguel Primo de Rivera. It is not just a matter of slowness, but also controversy. This Monday, the newspaper El País reported that in Alcántara (Cáceres) controversy has erupted because the educational community has been fighting for a year to remove the name of the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera from the facade of the public school. The school has encountered threats from the far-right, insults to teachers, and obstruction from the City Council (PP) and the Junta de Extremadura (PP-Vox). The argument of the popular mayor, Mónica Granados, for not proceeding with the name change is to preserve "social peace".

Like a reserve team player who scores the goal that wins the Champions League for their team. That's how unexpected the success of Obsession. The good feelings that this independent production by filmmaker However, although it seems to have come out of nowhere, Curry Barker has been chasing scares and chills on the internet for some years now. Like other emerging talents in the genre –the Philippou brothers or Kane Parsons, author of Backrooms–, the director made a name for himself with a YouTube channel where he has posted sketches and short films that oscillate between comedy and horror (such as The chair, where we can detect the germ of ideas exploited in

On Tuesday, June 23, the eve of Sant Joan, Cadaqués will wake up early to a very unique and evocative artistic experience. At five in the morning, before sunrise, the spectacular rock of Cucurucuc, located at the tip of the bay, beyond s'Arnella beach, will become the floating stage for a

Claron McFadden is one of the most prestigious sopranos on the contemporary classical music scene. Recognized for her ability to move naturally between opera, improvisation, and performanceunique. The North American soprano Claron McFadden will perform The performance as Cucurucuc is part of an initiative promoted by the Venetian festival Microclima (Cinema Galleggiante Venezia), in collaboration with Cosmogram and the Arxipèlag cycle. The proposal is complemented, on Monday, June 22, by the screening at the Art i Joia Theater of three experimental cinema pieces: Devenir, by Eugènia Balcells; Aqueronte, by Manuel Muñoz Rivas, and The very eye of the night, by Maya Deren.

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It is said that the painter David Hockney's obsession with swimming pools began when, on a flight from London to Los Angeles, he was surprised by the number of blue spots breaking up the greyness of the city. The Californian sun hit the water patches, which shimmered upwards. That blue and shiny beauty fascinated him, but it also led him to think about his country. In the sixties, in England, having a private swimming pool was a great luxury. In the star city of California, it seemed like a normal thing. Swimming pools presented themselves to him as clear evidence of the American dream. A socioeconomic indicator, but also a promise of the freedom and enjoyment that he, as a homosexual person, had not found in the country where he was born.

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150,000 attendees at Sónar 2026. This is the data provided by the festival's management. It is a global figure that also includes Sónar Kids (1,500 people), Sónar+D (4,000), Sónar District parties at Parc del Fòrum, and OffSónar at Poble Espanyol. However, the festival does not detail the audience for OffSónar activities, nor for Sónar District, nor for the three musical days at the Fira Gran Via venue. Therefore, it is difficult to compare it with 2025, beyond the fact that last year the global figure was 161,000 attendees: 52,000 at Sónar de Dia in Montjuïc, 66,500 at the two days of Sónar de Nit in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, and 42,000 at OffSónar.

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Thousands of people signed up for the bombing. Plaça Nova was packed like an egg at a quarter to nine in the evening, when a helicopter emerged from behind the spires of Barcelona Cathedral to drop a hundred thousand bookmarks with poems in defense of freedom. "How beautiful, to remember peace at a time of wars. To change aggressiveness and death, for poetry and peace," say Pedro and Maria Luisa, from L'Hospitalet, who did not leave over the weekend to see this unusual action.

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50 years ago, a group of artists joined forces with one goal: to reclaim the Grec Theatre and put it at the service of the people. From that collective impulse, the Grec was born, a festival that in the last five decades has become a showcase for the best international shows and, at the same time, a springboard for local creation. We take advantage of the anniversary to rescue the festival's behind-the-scenes history from the hands of artists and directors who have been part of it all this time.

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The cascade of transformative events, technical progress, ideological and religious upheavals (everything went together), and intellectual and cultural developments that occurred between the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in what is commonly considered the full bloom of the humanist Renaissance and the official birth of the modern world, was unprecedented and prodigious. The aesthetic and intellectual recovery of the updated Greco-Roman classical world, the expansion of knowledge in medicine and astronomy, the broadening of scope in geographical and commercial terms (with the European discovery of the New World), the crucial pictorial invention of perspective, the shattering of Christianity caused by the reformer Martin Luther: all of this, while in many cases not representing a break with the Middle Ages but rather a continuation and culmination of medieval dynamics, ways of doing things, and ideas, makes that era a singularly radiant moment in human history.

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The new layout of Sónar at Fira Gran Via means that the simultaneous offering grows considerably. Up to six simultaneous stages operate during a large part of the afternoon, night, and early morning. The feeling of frustration for not being able to get everywhere exists, but perhaps it is not as evident as in other festivals. Well into midnight, the public moves between the stages and rest areas without haste and with a more contemplative than restless attitude. Surely managing energies to be in top form when it's time to give it all at Charlotte de Witte's set, one of Friday's early morning highlights.

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The Francoist repression and the workers' struggle are two of the axes of La rosa dels set pètals, the new community opera that will be performed at the Liceu on June 4, 5, and 6, 2027. It is the second work of the Òpera Prima project promoted by the Rambla theater, following La gata perduda (2022), set in the Raval. The seven petals in the title refer to the seven neighborhoods of the Sant Andreu district of Barcelona: Navas, la Sagrera, el Congrés i els Indians, Sant Andreu del Palomar, la Trinitat Vella, el Bon Pastor, and Baró de Viver. And the rose evokes the plastic flowers that the prisoners of La Trinitat Vella were to make, a scene of penitentiary repression against women in Catalonia during the last fifteen years of Francoism and where the re-educative role imposed by the nuns of the Cruzadas Evangélicas de Cristo Rey was particularly sinister. "Freedom, women, identity, and memory" are the concepts that link the work done by Blanca Bardagil in the libretto and also permeate the musical composition of the brothers Tomàs and Lucas Peire. Similarly, this will be transferred to the staging directed by Israel Solà.

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The Barcelona City Council will formalize in the coming days the purchase of the premises in Raval from Taller de Músics, the music school located in various spaces on Cendra, Requesens, and Príncep de Viana streets. The acquisition, for a price of 1.8 million euros, "aims to guarantee the continuity of the project," says the council in a statement. In these premises, Taller de Músics develops its music school and offers training in jazz, new technologies, and flamenco, among others. They also house the management and artist representation offices and the Taller's record label, La Col·lecció. One of the spaces in Raval was already owned by the Taller de Músics Private Foundation, while the others—those that the City Council will purchase—belong to the company Locals Musicals S.L., which is owned by the founder of Taller de Músics, Lluís Cabrera.

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The Major Oak, one of the most emblematic trees in the United Kingdom for its size and its connection to the legend of Robin Hood, has died after a process of progressive deterioration. The oak, located in Sherwood Forest, in the north of England, was between 800 and 1,200 years old and was considered one of the country's great natural icons and cultural heritage.

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The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (Idibell) and the Ekho Research Group of the University of Barcelona (UB) have presented at Sónar+D, at La Llotja de Mar, HÈLIX. Genomic Variations, a project that, based on genomic and epigenetic data, creates music with artificial intelligence models. It is inspired by studies that consider human musicality to be partially conditioned by genetic and epigenetic factors, with an estimated heritability between 40% and 70%, and proposes a new way to explore and communicate biological complexity by making biomedical research dialogue with the arts and creative technologies.

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Up to now, and for almost thirty years, we have known Josep Pedrals (Barcelona, 1979) as a poet, a performer, a lecturer, and a cultural manager. With Poeticismes (Arcàdia, 2026), he debuts as an essayist with the same combination of pleasantness, erudition, and humor that abounds in his verses. In the catch-all drawer that is Pedrals' new book, we find reflections on emperors buried in honey or on the monument to Jacint Verdaguer on Passeig de Sant Joan, chronicles of some of the thousands of recitals in which he has participated around the world —like the one that took him to Macedonia accompanied by Adam Zagajewski—, vindications of authors less known to readers than they should be, and a wealth of curious technical speculations on poetry writing, one of his great passions, along with omnivorous reading and a love for the stage.

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Feeling of a cycle change on the first day of Sónar 2026, the first edition since 1994 without the three founders (Sergio and Enric Palau and Ricard Robles). Therefore, the first with François Jozic as director, and also the first without distinction between Sónar de Dia and Sónar de Nit because now all activity is concentrated in a single venue, Fira Gran Via, in l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, although the professional part of Sónar+D is premiering location at La Llotja de Mar and Sónar Kids is being revived, which takes place at Parc del Fòrum. Despite the aroma of a turned page, there are invariable things, such as the pleasant feeling of letting yourself be carried away by hedonism and unexpected discovery.

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Saxophonist Irene Reig, composer Antoni Ros Marbà, choral singer Momi Maiga, and the duo Alosa are some of the recipients in the seventh edition of the Alícia Awards granted by the Catalan Academy of Music. At the gala held this Thursday at L'Auditori de Barcelona, the lifetime achievement award was also presented to organist Montserrat Torrent, who has just turned 100 years old.

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Que morin els fills dels altres, the second novel by Roser Cabré-Verdiell (Barcelona, 1982), has won the 55th Crexells Prize, awarded annually by the Ateneu Barcelonès and endowed with 6,000 euros. "It is a singular story, which shakes the family institution right from the title, impactful and enigmatic, and which is written in a forceful and lyrical prose that transports the reader through a world that moves in ambiguity," highlights the jury, made up of Lluïsa Julià, Xavier Aliaga, Francesco Ardolino, Montserrat Palau, Xènia Dyakonova, and Eva Piquer.

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The British Mary Beard (Much Wenlock, 1955) has popularized the history of Ancient Rome through television, books, and lectures worldwide, and her works have been translated into over 35 languages. At 71, this emerita professor from Cambridge remains tireless and optimistic. She has just published Classics without filters (Edicions 62 / Crítica; with Catalan translation by Joan Solé), which she dedicates to the curator who, when she was little, opened a display case at the British Museum to show her a fossilized bread. In the book she talks about her career, but also about how both sides have used the Roman past. Among other things, she argues why the far-right is mistaken and what the statues admired by supremacists hide.

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There is a party that makes protagonists of the boys and girls who have the most important superpower taught at school: the pleasure of reading. Perhaps they don't yet know that this passion will serve them for life, because for now they go unnoticed in the classroom, but Clark Kent will always become Superman. This week we have infiltrated the Champions of young readers: the final party of the Public Reading Competition organized for twenty-two years by the Fundació Enciclopèdia Catalana. Fundació Enciclopèdia Catalana.

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