"I am an architect without a degree and an illustrator without training, but I dedicate myself to both"

Anouk Hoffman-Morin (Berlin, 1996) describes herself like this, laughing. “I am an architect without a degree and an illustrator without training, but I do both things," she explains. Hoffman-Morin has studied Architecture at the University of Montreal and Philosophy at the University of Quebec. And, although she does not have the qualifying degree of architect or training in the art world, this has not stopped her from creating a comic about architecture.

Originally from Berlin, Hoffman-Morin moved to Montreal at the age of four. Recently, however, she has landed in Catalonia after an investigation that has taken her to Berlin, Leipzig, Amsterdam, Zaragoza, Cal Rosal (Berguedà) and Barcelona, where she has documented through drawing heritage buildings transformed into self-managed initiatives.

In Catalonia, for example, Hoffman-Morin has portrayed the interior of the old convent of nuns from the late 19th century, which was converted into an artistic center, El Konvent de Cal Rosal (Berguedà); one of the old textile factories in the Carmel neighborhood of Barcelona known as Les Casetes and which today is a home-residence for adults with intellectual disabilities; the old Civil Guard barracks located near Park Güell and currently a symbol of the squatter movement, La Kasa de la Muntanya; and the buildings of Ca L'Espina and L'Antiga Massana, also in Barcelona. After fieldwork that began in the summer of 2024, he has filled 6 sketchbooks with drawings and notes on these projects, as well as hundreds of pages with interviews of those who have brought them to life. The idea behind it all is simple: to understand how they have used creativity and imagination to transform them.

Although initially the research was to be translated into a paper academic, Hoffman-Morin has opted for a more accessible format: the comic strip. The first draft of The palaces are ours! (The palaces are ours!, in Catalan) follows the journey of a character who discovers eight of these projects across Europe to find new ways of living and understanding space beyond traditional frameworks. "I was interested in getting to know places where there is a lot of freedom to build and where there can be a certain spontaneity in intervening collectively," explains Hoffman-Morin. "In contexts like rental housing – where most of us are confined – doing this is more difficult than in a space that has been reappropriated and where its future is decided collectively," she insists.

Hoffman-Morin's research is part of a Canadian government scholarship she obtained at the end of her architecture studies, which aims to address the problems in her country with the use and restoration of heritage buildings. "Unlike Catalonia, in North America there has been a terrible destruction of built heritage and its memory: most have either been demolished or have ended up being turned into museums, without any historical continuity," she exemplifies. "The idea of the scholarship was to investigate other ways of inhabiting these spaces to understand how heritage is managed, and to transfer this knowledge to the Canadian context to find new ways of reusing them without losing their soul," she points out.

Beyond conducting research for an academic entity, Hoffman-Morin also aspires to reach new audiences that allow bringing a reality often despised or marginalized closer. "Besides being more accessible, perhaps it also offers a change of perspective: are there really other ways of living beyond what we have been taught?", she concludes.