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.

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 cemetery is not a tomb... it's not that relationship with the landscape and with oblivion... It seems as if the deaths of all of us leave us immobile..." wrote architects Enric Miralles and Carme Pinós when they designed the new cemetery in Igualada, one of the most important works of its time, both nationally and internationally. "In the landscape, this path is a cloud of trees that echoes the existing profile... you walk beneath these trees, and the burials are in the walls of this cut," they also said. Sunday was a dreary day, and the low clouds accentuated the fact that the cemetery, which was left unfinished in the mid-nineties, is buried in an old streambed. Furthermore, over the years, the concrete has aged, and the unfinished chapel has a monumental character and, at the same time, a somewhat unsettling quality. "Descending, beneath the trees, leaving the cut towards the river: something like a promenade, and some existing trees have led you somewhere else," Miralles and Pinós said.

The first major milestone of Barcelona, ​​the World Capital of Architecture, is here. Mayor Jaume Collboni and lead architect Maria Buhigas have unveiled the scale model. Barcelona Plan 2026-2035, A cutting-edge miniature model of the city will be on permanent display at the former headquarters of Editorial Gustavo Gili, which serves as the headquarters for the European Capital of Culture. "We want to pay tribute to architecture and urban planning as powerful tools for improving people's lives and expressing values, a vision of the city," says Jaume Collboni, who was also accompanied by Pere Navarro, delegate of the Zona Franca Consortium. The model, built to a scale of 1:1,500, covers the central part of the Barcelona metropolitan area, known as the Pla de Barcelona, ​​bordered by the Collserola mountain range to the north, the lower course of the Besòs River to the east, the Llobregat River and its delta to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south.

Architect Josep Lluís Mateo (Barcelona, ​​1949) achieved one of the first major international milestones in the mid-1990s with a new headquarters for the German central bank in Chemnitz. The competition was a challenge, and Mateo prevailed with a truly ambitious project. After discovering the fossilized trees in the city's Paleontology Museum, Mateo conceived the building, located in the Park of the Victims of Fascism—home to a centuries-old forest—as "a petrified tree," as can be seen in the exhibition Mateo presented at the College of Architects of Catalonia's historical archive. The tree metaphor allowed Mateo to resolve the building's relationship with its surroundings and also with Germany's turbulent history. The most striking detail is that the main façade is made of alabaster, which freezes in cold weather, and glass. This allows natural light to enter, and at night it transforms the building into an urban lantern. "The building is, at the same time, something organic and geometric," says Mateo. The exhibition is titled Open work The curators are Maria Figueras and Cristina Marcos, from the Acto studio, along with Mateo's own studio. As for the title, it refers to how Mateo approaches his work "as an open work, to be discovered in each case," as he himself says.

While this weekend the Luz BCN Festival gives the popular starting signal to the Barcelona World Capital of ArchitectureThe official launch will take place on February 12, coinciding with Saint Eulalia's Day. The program for the European Capital of Culture, which will conclude on December 13, coinciding with Saint Lucy's Day, will include more than 1,500 activities, 500 of which are routes and guided tours. There will also be 300 debates and conferences, 143 exhibitions, and 140 workshops. These are some of the must-sees.

For architect Jaume Bach (Sabadell, 1943), the civic nature of his profession is key. "It's about offering a new way of looking at a society that is perhaps too self-absorbed, and the idea that architecture is a public matter, something that belongs to everyone," says Jaume Bach, who has completed the Reina Sofía Museum's auditorium-cinema with his son Eugeni and his younger sister, Anna Bach. The project is the result of the renovation of the old auditorium, which he carried out with Gabriel Mora in the 1980s. The inauguration coincides with the publication of Jaume Bach architect (Puente Editores), a monograph featuring some of his major works, with photographs by Eugeni Bach and texts by younger architects, including Jaume Mayol and Bet Capdeferro. This last point is a sign of how he has become a reference point for new generations and of the timeless quality of his work.

Barcelona City Council begins to reveal the activities of Barcelona will be declared World Capital of Architecture in 2026For ten months, between the days of Saint Eulalia and Saint Lucia, Barcelona will be the "world epicenter of architecture" with more than 200 proposals and some 1,500 activities, including around fifty exhibitions, 268 routes and guided tours, and 85 events in the neighborhood and Buhigas. "We want everyone to put on their architect's glasses to look around and imagine a city where rights such as housing are guaranteed, based on sustainable mobility, and with infrastructure adapted to the new climate reality," said Collboni. The mayor also highlighted how the events will highlight areas of Barcelona undergoing rapid transformation by 2035, including the station and the Sagrera neighborhood, Montjuïc Mountain, and the coastline, from the Port of Barcelona to the Fòrum.

Architect Manuel Gausa (Barcelona, ​​​​1959 - 2025) died unexpectedly this Saturday at the age of 66, according to ARA from close sources. In Catalonia, Gausa is known as a transgressive architect and theorist who approached the discipline from the idea of ​​"environmental architecture," that is, not as a formalist object but, as he himself said, "as scenarios at a crossroads, between stairs and places, between tensions and demands, between limits and borders, beyond old ones. Thus, Gausa proposed approaching the city and the territory "beyond the old paradigms of traditional urban planning." On the contrary, his approach admitted contributions from the art world and from fields such as physics, mathematics, computer science, biogenetics, literature and philosophy. The fruit of all this is "reactive architectures" capable of reacting to the environment.

Architect Emili Donato (Figueres, 1934) turned 91 in March and maintains an enviable vitality. Donato is a true character and doesn't tend to rebel or play games with the ARA photographer. His colleague and editor Francesc Pernas has dedicated a monograph to the 47-61 Editor imprint, simply titled Emili Donato which can be considered an event, because, although Donato is one of the most active Catalan architects during the second half of the 20th century, he is one of those who has had the least exposure. Thus, as Pernas says in the prologue, this monograph is "an act of justice."

A consensus among architects is that the best way to preserve a building over time is to keep it in use. And if its use doesn't change too much, the building probably won't have to undergo radical transformations. In the case of the Mundet Homes complex, owned by the Barcelona Provincial Council and ceded to the University of Barcelona (UB), this was the case with the renovations carried out by Francesc Labastida and Manuel Ribas Piera in the 1990s. But now the UB's project to install the Barcelona Center for Applied Neurosciences (BCAN) in the former theater.

Friction often arises in the relationship between the Sagrada Família and its surroundings, especially due to the overwhelming influx of tourists, who encroach on the spaces of the neighborhood's residents. Would converting the future entrance through the Gloria façade into a forest help redirect the relationship between the two? This is the proposal that architect José de Villar is presenting as the tutor for one of the groups in the latest edition of the summer workshops on architecture, landscape, and photography organized by the RCR studio in Olot from July 4 to 19. With this proposal, nature becomes "the mediator" between the basilica and the city. De Villar makes this concrete by introducing its surroundings into a more natural topography. "It's about achieving urban comfort by applying how a forest works," says the architect.

Antoni Gaudí wasn't afraid of his final exam: he submitted a project for a circular auditorium, even though he knew that Elies Rogent, the director of the School of Architecture, then located in the historic building of the University of Barcelona (UB), was on the panel. Rogent was the designer of the UB auditorium, which was designed in a completely different way, with a longitudinal nave located in the heart of the building. All of this is reflected in the exhibition. Transhistorical Pedagogies: 150 Years of the Barcelona School of Architecture, which can be seen from this Thursday until September at the Barcelona headquarters of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) and serves to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB). The grade Gaudí obtained went down in history: he passed by the minimum and passed by the minimum of an architect "like a genius or a madman."

Catalan studios once again shine in the awards sponsored by the Spanish National Council of Architects (CSACE). Specifically, two of the eight winning projects are by architects based in Catalonia. These are the Kunstsilo art museum in the Norwegian city of Kristiansand, by Maestros/Wåge, Mendoza/Partida, and BAX Studio; and the fluvial restoration of the Manzanares River, by the Aldayjover firm.

A breath of fresh air is blowing through Catalan architecture. According to Albert Nogueras, president of the Association of Young Architects of Catalonia of the College of Architects of Catalonia (AJAC), the architects under 40 recognized a few days ago at the 14th edition of the AJAC Awards are beginning to show a change in "their tectonic quality and formal risk," following "the crisis." Nogueras emphasizes that these professionals, including firms such as Nua, Bajet Giramet, Metrónomo, H3o, Sarquella Torres, and Cierto Estudio, reflect the "versatility" of this new generation of architects because "in the face of a declining outlook in the construction sector," they have been able to make themselves "available to other disciplines."

Four months after the State understood, the future of Casa Gomis as a cultural facility is beginning to take shape: the home designed by architect Antonio Bonet Castellana will be a house museum managed by the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC). It is scheduled to open in 2026, coinciding with Barcelona becoming UNESCO's World Capital of Architecture and the Catalan capital hosting the International Union of Architects' World Congress of Architecture for the second time. As the Ministry of Culture and the museum announced in a statement this Friday, the MNAC team will be responsible for the cultural programming of Casa Gomis, classified as a cultural asset of national interest (BCIN). Furthermore, the Ministry of Culture will be responsible for any necessary renovation and maintenance work.

The most cutting-edge Catalan architecture is rooted and, at the same time, global, experimental, and radical. And its authors often think more about the social impact of their work than about its forms. Once again, the Venice Architecture Biennale will be the global showcase of the excellence of a string of Catalan and Balearic architects of different generations, in areas that include the Catalan pavilion within the so-called collateral events, the central exhibition, curated by the English architect and engineer, Catalans will be most, and finally, the Vatican pavilion. "We need to expand the idea of sustainability," warns architect Mireia Luzárraga, founder with Alejandro Muiño of the Takk studio, who will be responsible, along with fellow architect Eva Franch, for Water parliaments, the Catalan pavilion, sponsored by the Institut Ramon Llull, as part of the collateral events, although they will also be represented in the Spanish pavilion. "It's evident, as we just saw with the blackout we suffered on Monday," Luzárraga emphasizes, "that the contemporary context and the future will continually present us with challenges due to the climate crisis, geopolitical issues, and the depletion of fossil fuels. As architects, we have the responsibility to readily take on a leading role."

Earth is an ancient building material that has been used all over the world. For several years, it has been gaining increasing importance in architectural firms due to all the advantages it offers. "Actually, we've always built with earth, but we abandoned it after the industrial revolution," explains Manuel Bouzas, architect and curator of the Spanish pavilion at the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale along with his partner Roi Salgueiro. "Perhaps ten years ago it would have surprised us quite a bit, but nowadays it doesn't, and that's because we're getting used to it. The wood"Wood, for example, is already quite established. Today, any public building or housing competition, basically, is all made of wood. It's become popular. Which also requires thinking about what comes next," says Bouzas. Thus, he predicts that other materials will also become much more common. "Other materials, such as stone and earth, may not be as popular, but they are starting to become so. And the growth potential in the coming years is extremely high. Among other reasons, because it's an omnipresent material," he adds.

Earth is an ancient building material that has been used all over the world. For several years, it has been gaining increasing importance in architectural firms due to all the advantages it offers. "Actually, we've always built with earth, but we abandoned it after the industrial revolution," explains Manuel Bouzas, architect and curator of the Spanish pavilion at the upcoming Venice Architecture Biennale along with his partner Roi Salgueiro. "Perhaps ten years ago it would have surprised us quite a bit, but nowadays it doesn't, and that's because we're getting used to it. The wood"Wood, for example, is already quite established. Today, any public building or housing competition, basically, is all made of wood. It's become popular. Which also requires thinking about what comes next," says Bouzas. Thus, he predicts that other materials will also become much more common. "Other materials, such as stone and earth, may not be as popular, but they are starting to become so. And the growth potential in the coming years is extremely high. Among other reasons, because it's an omnipresent material," he adds.

Intervening in a signature building is often a very delicate matter. One of these more recent cases is that of the French Institute of Barcelona, ​​one of the most emblematic works of Josep Antoni Coderch (1913-1984). The owner, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is underway with a renovation and refurbishment project whose scope is dividing the Barcelona architecture sector. There is consensus that maintenance work is needed to bring the building up to date and improve its energy efficiency, but the ministry's desire to relocate the French consulate to Barcelona and install a cafeteria is raising a storm, although the French authorities and those responsible for the institute itself are handling the project discreetly. work of the Freaks Architecture studio, which won the corresponding competition in 2023.