Jueves 6 de Marzo

Sala Albert Calsamiglia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

9:30 – 10:00
Inscripción y recogida de la documentación

10:00 – 10:30
Inauguración y presentación del Seminario
Joan Nogué (UdG-OPC), Isabel Valverde (UPF), Antoni Luna (UPF)

10:30 – 11:30
Presentación del libro El Hombre y la Tierra: naturaleza de la realidad geográfica de Eric Dardel; prólogo de Jean-Marc Besse en la edición en castellano dentro de la colección “Paisaje y Teoría” de Biblioteca Nueva – Siglo XXI.
Jean-Marc Besse (CNRS, UMR Géographie-Cité), Joan Nogué (UdG-OPC)

11:30 – 12:00
Descanso

12:00 – 13:00
Conferencia Inaugural
Rafael Argullol (UPF), “El hombre ante el infinito. 30 años de La atracción del abismo”

13:00 – 16:00
Pausa

Paisaje y Emoción en las artes visuales

16:00 – 17:00
Conferencia
Abigail Solomon-Godeau (University of California Santa Barbara), “Haunted Landscapes in Recent Photographic Art Practices”

17:00 – 17:15
Descanso

17:15 – 18:30
Comunicaciones
Nuria Llorens (UAB), “Soledades en la pintura de paisaje clásica del siglo XVII”
Kerstin Thomas (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) “The Mood of Landscape: Gauguin, Hodler, Leistikow”
Isabel Valverde (UPF), “Mal du pays(age): nostalgia, paisaje y modernidad”

18:30 – 18:45
Descanso

18:45 – 19:30
Comunicaciones
Alan Salvadó (UPF), “Un recorrido por la geografía de las emociones a través de imágenes del cine contemporáneo”
Rosa Cerarols, Antonio Luna (UPF), “Paisaje, cine y género”

19:30 – 20:00
Discusión y Mesa Redonda

Viernes 7 de Marzo

Sala Albert Calsamiglia, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Geografía, emociones y paisaje

10:00 – 11:30
Conferencia
Jean-Marc Besse (CNRS, UMR Géographie-Cité), “Géographie psychique. Notes sur le sentiment de l’espace”

11:30 – 12:00
Descanso

12:00 – 13:30
Comunicaciones
Marta Tafalla (UAB), “Paisaje y Sensorialidad”
Joan Nogué (UdG/OPC), “Emoción, lugar y paisaje”
Pol Capdevila (UPF), “La construcción de la temporalidad en El cielo gira”

13:30 – 14:00
Discusión Mesa Redonda

14:00 – 16:00
Pausa

16:00 – 17:00
Mesa Redonda
David Moriente, Antonio Luna (UPF), Paisaje Urbano y Trauma.
Moderadora: Isabel valverde (UPF)

17:00 – 18:00
Descanso y traslado al IAAC
Auditori, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), Pujades 102

Arquitectura, paisaje y emoción

18:00 – 19:00
Conferencia
Mosé Ricci (Università di Genoa), “Landscape: Urbanscape?”

19:00 – 20:30
Mesa Redonda
Moderador: Manuel Gausa (IaaC)

20:30 – 21:00
Clausura y Aperitivo

ArchiLab, the international laboratory of architecture, was created in 1999 by Marie-Ange Brayer and Frederic Migayrou in Orleans, France. It is an international laboratory engaged in research and experimentation, aiming to defend the young generation of architects, and presents the conceptual and pragmatic transformations taking place in the field of architecture.

In 1999, the first edition of ArchiLab explored the paradigm shift brought by the emergence of digital technologies within the newly emerging computational space.

The next edition, that is the 9^th, will take place in September, and will be dedicated to the interactions between digital architecture and life sciences (biotechnology, neurosciences, genetics, etc).

Today, the utilization of a new generation of software programs for designing architecture, along with techniques that make organic simulation possible, is enabling architects to explore the specific principles of evolution on the living realm with increasing precision. The same processes now revolutionizing the scientific disciplines, architecture, art and design, are being used by designers to achieve ever greater degrees of complexity. They are also bringing about a profound mutation in the very concept of nature.

During her presentation, Marie-Ange presented the works of some of the architects, designers and artists invited for the 9^th edition, such as Alisa Andrasek (www.biothing.org), Roland Snooks & Robert Stuart-Smith (www.kokkugia.com), Marc Fornes (http://theverymany.com), Andrew Kudless (http://matsysdesign.com), Skylar Tibbits (www.sjet.us), Neri Oxman (http://web.media.mit.edu/~neri/site/), Joris Laarman (www.jorislaarman.com), Achim Menges (www.achimmenges.com), Gramazio & Kohler (www.gramaziokohler.com) with Raffaello D’Andrea (http://raffaello.name), Theo Spyropoulos (www.minimaforms.com), Claudia Pasquera & Marco Poletto (www.ecologicstudio.com), Zoe Coombes & David Boira (www.commonwealth.nu), Thom Flauders (www.flauders-studio.com), B+U (www.bplusu.com), SOMA (www.soma-architecture.com), Ulrika Karlsson & Marcelyn Gow (www.servo-stockholm.com), Jenny Sabin (http://jennysabin.com), Akihisa Hirata (www.hao.nu), Kunya Ishigami (www.jnyi.jp), Matias del Campo Sandra Manninger (www.span-arch.com), Iris Van Herpen (www.irisvanherpen.com), Isaie Bloch (http://eragatory.blogspot.fr), Michael Hansmeyer (http://michael-hansmeyer.com), Casey Reas (http://reas.com), and Perry Hall (www.lovebrain.net).

Marie-Ange Brayer at IaaC

Lecture: “Naturalizing Architecture”
21st of May // 19:30 // IAAC Auditorium // C/Pujades 102 BARCELONA

Since 1996, Marie-Ange Brayer has been director of the Centre Regional Contemporary Art Collection [FRAC, Centre] in Orléans, France, where the collection is channelled towards the linkage between art and research architecture. The FRAC Centre has been putting together a collection to do with architecture in its utopian and experimental dimension, from the 1950s up until the present day. In 1999 she founded with Frédéric Migayrou the Orléans International Architectural Conference, ArchiLab, which brings together younger international practitioners involved in the latest forms of architecture.

In 2002, M.-A. Brayer was appointed with Béatrice Simonot as curator of the French Pavilion of the Venice Biennale of Architecture’s 8th International Exhibition of Architecture. In 2008, she was associate curator of the 3rd International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville (BIAC) for the “Youniverse” exhibition, with Peter Weibel as general curator. In 2013, she will curate ArchiLab « Naturalizing the architecture » with Frederic Migayrou. Art and architecture critic, Marie-Ange Brayer has published numerous articles in her domain in magazines and catalogs .She is currently working on a doctorate treating the architectural model since the Renaissance by tracing the history of its representation at the EHESS (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in Paris.

Ten years after the appearance of the Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture IAAC boosts The Green Dictionary, an ambitious multi-format project (print and digital) focused on sustainable development issues, energy self-sufficiency , creative management of resources, innovation and interaction with the environment, recycling and urban renaturation, sensitive contexts, intelligent cities, relational spaces, active natures, permaculture and more.
The Green Dictionary will be a collective effort boost by IAAC involving recognized experts, IAAC current students and the big IAAC alumni community, collaborative international research units and new incentives and energies.

The presentation was divided into 3 parts:

1. The short film “Codigo 7” by Nacho Vigalondo
2. The presentation of a built project through 6 conditions
3. The project of the Centro de Salud San Martin by Pedro Urzáiz and Carlos Pérez-Pla

Part 1: Codigo 7

A man wakes up in the morning and makes coffee, not knowing who is trapped in a virtual reality world or discover his true identity. The same scene is then depicted with 3 different narrations resulting finally in three different stories…which one was true? Does it matter?

Vigalondo famous trilogy, whose first delivery was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 3rd edition of Nodofilmfest.com.

Part 2: The presentation of a built project through 6 conditions

The six conditions presented were the diagram, the program, the material, the floor plan, the cross section, and a construction detail.

How one perceives an architecture, or an architectural element, and the relations between these, their organization, the friction between these, and the margin of error, all contribute to a diverse and ever changing tale or story.

Part 3:Centro de Salud San Martin by Pedro Urzáiz and Carlos Pérez-Pla

Finally, after having heard the tale of the Centro through the diagram, program, material, floor plan, cross section, and detail, we were able to really visualize the project and understand the concept of a non-linear description, resulting in an interesting debate on how far one can push this non-linear way of thinking in architecture.

The lecture was presented in four parts:

I. DUALITIES AND DICHOTOMIES: DIVISIONS, OPPOSITIONS  AND CONTRAPOSITIONS

II. A RECURSIVE DIAGRAM: LOST PARADISE, LATENT PARADISE, FORBIDDEN PARADISE, THE LOST PARADISE / THE LALTENT PARADISE/ THE FORBIDDEN PARADISE (OR THE HELL)

III. HYBRID SCENARIOS: COUPLING, HYBRIDIZATION AND PARADOXES IN ARCHITECTURE AND THE CONTEMPORARY CITY

IV. RETURNING TO…BEAUTY AND/IS THE BEAST…A HYBRID UNIVERSE.

I. DUALITIES AND DICHOTOMIES

DIVISIONS, OPPOSITIONS  AND CONTRAPOSITIONS

The dichotomous division has been at the root of most logical and explorative approaches of reality (classical or modern, symbolic or rational) and refers to a set – or system – of dual categories that divide it on opposite sides and are subject to an antagonistic bipartition.

Dichotomous thought, in this sense, builds a classification method in which hierarchical divisions and subdivisions typically include two parts, two sections, two elements, ie only two mutually exclusive sides..

The dichotomous division is directly associated with dualism as a doctrine that affirms the existence of two separate and antagonistic principles – opposing faced and confronted – and also, in a broader sense, essentially different orders:

Ideal and real, material and spiritual, nature and culture (art), physical order and moral order,

Reason and emotion (sense and sensibility), even and odd, positive and negative, good and evil,

… Masculine and feminine, etc.

Also in the architectonical and traditional logic

the spatial order would be divided in typologic, dichotomic and deterministic taxonomies.

– “up and down”

– “horizontal and vertical”

– “exterior and interior”

– “figure and ground”

– “volume and surface”

– “city and territory”

– “natural and artificial”

– “architecture and landscape”

– “landscape and infrastructure”

– “infrastructure and architecture”

– “skin and structure”, etc.

Then going on to elaborate Film dichotomies depending on a recursive pattern, Film paradigms.

II. A RECURSIVE DIAGRAM

LOST PARADISE, LATENT PARADISE, FORBIDDEN PARADISE

THE LOST PARADISE / THE LALTENT PARADISE/ THE FORBIDDEN PARADISE (OR THE HELL)

Scenarios and recursive schemes that lead to the emancipation/regeneration (through mutation or metamorphosis) of the “monster” (the threat) or to its disappearance (death and/or elimination)

> dissolution of the danger or threat of mix, impurity or “pollution”

RECURSIVE SCHEME

1–Woman –beauty,  young–  presented in the city ( reassuring scenario > the civilisated, the artificial, the human (ARS)

2– Travel –mandatory and initiation– to the nature: fear and fascination (the strange, the sublime, the wild nature (NATUS)

3– Discovery of the dwelling or fortress of the beast

(mysterious, remote, inaccessible, forbidden… lost paradise…)

4–Appearance and meeting of the being… the monster or the beast

(mysterious, monstrosity, wildness, supernatural, strange, threatening, etc.)

5– Horror and terror, aversion and repulsion, fear and/or rejection.

6– Kidnap and abduction: resistance

7– Forced Retention and mandatory coexistence. Initial rejection, resignation and adaptation.

The monster (the beast) in hia “hábitat”, latent paradise…

8– Approach (subtle and/or explicit). Complicity and gallantry

9–Wish and attraction. Seduction. Temptation and union attempt

> danger of mixture or crossing, of contagion, ”corruption” and/or “pollution”(impurity).

Attempt usually frustrated

10– Outcome: crisis and catharsis. Rupture of the “spell”.

Redemption or disappearance  of the being (or sublimation) by:

– regeneration and metamorphosis / tranfiguration of the monster –towards the normalized

– or dead, liberation and elimination of the threat…and of the forbidden paradise…)

END. Recodification of the ancient dichotomic essences: towards the normalized

(interdiction of monsters generation: impure hybrids)

III. HYBRID SCENARIOS

COUPLING, HYBRIDIZATION AND PARADOXES IN ARCHITECTURE AND THE CONTEMPORARY CITY

Beauty and the Beast as a paradigm of dualities. This is expressed in particular through the fear of particular couples, unconventional unions, that is hybrids. These hybrids or unconventional couples, that often are consequent to some form of mutation, are considered forbidden, consequently implying some form of punishment. In architecture there are often mixes, or hybrids. In this sense, these hybrids become operative paradoxes.

Beauty and the Beast depicts this particular paradigm, as, finally, the Beast holds all the elements of Beauty, the Beast is a hybrid himself, a mixture, he is not the contraposition of Beauty, he is simply complex and irregular, as in the open logic environment conditions:

Dynamism  (Evolution), Complexity (Simultaneity), Diversity (Plurality), Transversality (Connectivity), Interaction (Interchange)

>>>> Open logic

>>>> Informational order

>>>> Extroverted shape

IV. RETURNING TO…

BEAUTY AND/IS THE BEAST…A HYBRID UNIVERSE.

The Beast is, finally, both:

human (rational, sensible)  and animal (irrational, brute)

civilizated (educated,“artificial”) and savage (uneducated, “natural”)

attractive (elegant) and repulsive (rude, deformed)

normal (quotidian) and unusual (strange)

positive (right, generous) and negative (twisted, selfish)

pure (innocent, noble) and impure (perverse, sinuous)

is also

sophisticated and primitive

pleasant and unpleasant

welcoming and horrible

reassuring and threatening

predictable and unpredictable

tolerant and despotic

conventional and heterodox

sensible and fearsome

good and bad

Beast is a mixture

is an hybrid… a crossing…

a impure being… because of complex and irregular

rather than because of perverse o perverted…

This lecture culminated with a revisitation of the tale of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, in an advanced

Manuel believes that in the last 20 years a new way of thinking has emerged, that is a new operative logic, associated to a new territory of research, or “mental map”, through more open ways of conceiving and organizing the dynamics and irregularities of space. Hence thinking with a more effective spatial formulation and communication, being less prejudiced and more relational with respect to its information (intended in the wider sense, that is as an active vector of exchange).

A new relational and “informational” logic ultimately connected with the understanding of our environment, hence of the dynamic systems and their relative irregular structures, capable of combining, through links, multiple events and heterogeneous processes (for example complex energies) contingently activated and concurred in the same field of action and vibration.

In particular, the debate touched a series of topics, or doubts arisen during Manuel’s research, that are to be the theme for the students’ next research exercise (The man with x-ray eyes):

1_ Are we working with a new architectural logic – a new thought – or just with new technological tools?

2_ Are we in a new cultural time – informational – or even in a predominantly post-modern culture?

3_ Can we really speak of a “new architecture” – complex, advanced, interactive, informational, etc. – or are we just assisting to the wrinkling, the folding – the mannerist warp – of the modern and post-modern architectures?

4_ Can we detect, in “these new operational logics”, a propositive-critical attitude towards the system –radicalism, rebellious, alternative, etc.- or just a propositive-conformist attitude (and / or collaborationist) with the system? (operational-optimism vs. fresh-conservatism?)

5_ What differences of modern radical avant-garde of the 60’s (alternative) to the advanced innovation (reactive) of the 2000′s (strategic)?

6_ Can we talk about a shared and cultural adventure and research in recent architecture or just about a combination (a sum) of individual trajectories?

7_ If we can speak of a same relational logic … why join Greg Lynn – or Hernan Alonso for example – to Lacaton-Vassal … or MVRDV?

8_ What differentiates the anticipatory explorations (heterodoxes) of the radical modern architecture to the pioneering explorations (heterotopics) of the “informational” advanced architecture?

These doubts brought forth interesting thoughts, and other doubts or questions…

→Does Grasshopper bring us to design a process rather than a building?

→Can we design a process without formalization/ a formal concept?

→How abstract is the process?

→Are we inventing logics according to our tools?

→Does Advanced Architecture create tools that improve humanity? How much do these benefit our society?

→If post-modern architecture is a gesture, calligraphy; is advanced architecture a movement, trajectories in space, the strategy of a process?

→If modern architecture is about structure, is advanced architecture about infrastructure?

→If complexity is a contradiction in modern architecture, is it a symbiosis in advanced architecture?

… and many more.

All of this was topped off with a series of images, diagrams, maps and plans allowing us to complete the theoretical concepts with visual information.

With some seemingly innocent questions on the Architect Mediator we aimed to establish a strong position.
What is the architect’s position nowadays?
Between what information is it located?
What exactly does this translate into?

Through the presentation of post-tweets, an intellectual positioning from non conventional routes of theory, we mapped out what, collectively, we feel is an architect today, generating an intense debate around this theme.

The map revealed diverse individual concepts (post-tweets) that cluster around common themes (selected keywords) forming densities of ideas and generating an overall view, and our answer to those seemingly innocent questions.