Catalonia will be participating in the 2018 Architecture BIENNALE as part of the Eventi Collaterali with an exhibition on RCR (Pritzker Prize 2017), produced by the Ramon Llull Institute and curated by Pati Nuñez, Estrella Ortega and RCR: “RCR. SOMNI I NATURA_CATALONIA IN VENICE” [Dreams and nature]. The exhibition will see participation from various schools of architecture and design, alongside a programme of debates with international guest speakers co-organised with the College of Architects of Catalonia. Under the title “Schools in Venice”, students from universities and schools of architecture and design in Catalonia were invited to reflect on the slogan proposed by RCR, “What do we learn from nature?”.
La Salle-URL School of Architecture worked with students at a three-day workshop in Olot, where they were able to visit RCR's offices in the Barbieri building. From that three-day workshop, projects were selected to be presented in Venice.
La Salle-URL now completes the project with Venice Architecture Biennale Workshop XI-FREESPACE. A total of 30 architecture students will be participating. Students from outside the La Salle-URL School were invited to take part in a joint workshop, and students from the School of Architecture of Reus and ETSAV will also be participating. The idea is to repeat the cooperation between all the universities on a biannual basis.
The first part of the workshop, from the 2nd to the 4th of July, will take place at the La Salle-URL Campus, with various presentations to offer participants an idea of the context of the Biennale and Venice, on how to work in open spaces, as well as some primary practical work. One highlight will be a visit to Josep Llinàs’ office to explain his”Social condenser” project in Bogotá.
The workshop will be held in Venice between the 5th and 12th of July. Once there, the participants will spit into groups and each group will be charged with preparing one of the routes through the city and come up with a final presentation. Students will also attend various conferences, such as Roberto Massiero's talk on “Venezia Arte Facta. Storia dell'arte del costruire” and Lucia Ferrater's talk, “Referencia”. On the morning of Thursday 12th July, the workshop will close with presentations by the 5 groups in the space provided by the Biennale.
