La ciutat dibuixada pels arquitectes [laciutatdibuixada.blogspot.com.es] is an ongoing course at ETSAB, which aims to explore urban phenomena in a transversal manner from territorial [geography and infrastructure] to architectural domain [ground floor and domestic realm]. Traditionally, drawing described urban form in both an objective [scale drawing] and sensitive manner [free hand drawing]. In recent years, new technological achievements from other disciplines such as photography, modelling and geo-location radically have created new ways to depict subjective and objective mechanisms taking place in cities -alongside the tools required to synthesis them.

This evolution of representation tools has been instrumental in the construction of new interpretative but also projective models. The image of the city embodies the translation of the urban experience for communication and engenders the re-shaping of the worlds in which people live. Developing a “personal gaze” becomes the basis to re-make territory over again.

La ciutat dibuixada pels arquitectes seeks to experiment with representation tools and formats by means of three academic exercises. First, Unfolding Rambles explores the need to obtain personal records of reality [via own measuring instruments] and translate them into a synthetic document prior to the project. Second, Almanac of Small Data reviews the notion of almanac to propose a polyhedric and collective vision of Barcelona. By measuring and mapping existing conditions using information in a wide range of topics, the almanac will make an assertion about what the future of the city will hold. Finally, Layered Waterfront will complement previous experiences thanks to the construction of a single, synthetic and iconic urban image, i.e., a section of the coastline illustrating the changes experienced over the past twenty years.

Unfolding Rambles
Unfolding Rambles studies this living monument of Barcelona; despite being an area of great symbolic significance for citizens, tourism has deeply transformed and [re]shaped La Rambla. The structural role of the boulevard entails a double approach from the linearity of the promenade itself and its perimeter. Questions arise such as the physical saturation of the space, the guided movement of pedestrians, the poor diversity of ground floor uses [mostly souvenirs and fast food] and the coexistence of locals and tourists.

The exercise goes beyond geographical illustration to unmask invisible urban relationships: where the activity takes place, how public spaces shift according to the time of the day, which are the most crowded areas and places for citizenship’s identification, etc. These other aspects are what we call intangibles. Unfolding Rambles captures the ‘ephemeral’ besides the geometry of urban plots and facades, using novel representation tools from other disciplines [geography, cartography and data analysis] to reveal and realize the hidden urban potential.

The student works are:

DUES GENERACIONS, DUES RAMBLES. Minerva Ramírez Cabello i Lorena Simone Hortelano.
A dynamic space as La Rambla cache static sites (areas to stay or wait for someone, to stop and observe) where different groups coexist according to customs, activities and ways of life. These sites reflect different generations’ behaviour grouped by ranges of ages: youth and senior Rambles indicate common spaces and shared activities.

SCORE. Inés Masó Sotomayor i Cristina Herrero de la Fuente.
Barriers and obstacles in La Rambla block transversal flows. The first representation describes the length, the density/permeability and height of the barriers as seen from the side lanes. The second diagram goes a step further to unveil the negative of the previous vacuum: its rhythm, floor space and density.

URGÈNCY. Marc Anton Ros Gargante i Gemma Torras Rolando.
Diagram describing where to go free and fast at a time of emergency. The permeability of the ground floor in La Rambla is weighted according to the ease of access to toilets’ establishments (May I go to the bathroom?), which link public and private realms.

MONEY, CHAIR AND BEER. Cristina Garcia Nadal i Cristina Rosa Cervelló.
The beer business shapes this urban space. Bars, located on the sides, work during daylight hours enabling a linear activity in the sea-mountain direction. At night, ambulant trade divide La Rambla in sections, each of them associated with a vendor located in proximity to the metro stations. This strategic position, covering also cross trails where beers empty, provokes an unusual transversal performance of La Rambla.

REMAININGS. Maria Múzquiz Barberá i Joana Solsona Bernades.
This cartography, between a skyline and a bar chart, illustrates the years of activity of each establishment. The size and permanence of the business highlights the difference between the two sides of La Rambla. The oldest shops stand as a kind of landmark in the history of the city.

/// Thanks to Mar Santamaria Varas for sharing this project with us.
/// The city drawn by the architects is an optional course lead by Mar Santamaria Varas [coordination 300000kms.net] and Montserrat Ribas Barba and provided by the Department of Urban Design and Regional Planning [DUOT] and Architectural Drawing [EGA] of the School of Architecture of Barcelona [ETSAB-UPC].

The Foundation’s citation regarding the decision to award the 2013 prize to Joan Fontcuberta reads as follows:

“Joan Fontcuberta is one of the most inventive contemporary photographers, with an over 30-year achievement of constantly investigating and questioning the photographic medium. His work is distinguished by original and playful conceptual approaches that particularly explore photographic conventions, means of representation and claims to truth. He challenges concepts of science and fiction in interdisciplinary projects that extend far beyond the gallery space. In addition to his photographic practice, Joan Fontcuberta’s capacities as a writer, teacher and curator have been greatly inspirational to the younger generation.”

This year’s award committee, which submitted its proposal to the Foundation’s board of directors, consisted of:

- Ute Eskildsen (chair), Professor – Head of the Department of Photography, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany until 2012.
- Thomas Joshua Cooper, Professor, Photography Department, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Great Britain.
- Marcel Feil, Deputy-Director, Artistic Affairs, Foam Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Agnès Sire, Director, Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, France.

More info: Hasselblad Foundation

PHANTOM. Mies as Rendered Society by Andrés Jaque marks the fourth episode in a series of artistic and architectural interventions since 2008 in the Mies van der Rohe Barcelona Pavilion. Each intervention has spoken to the epistemological fixidity the Pavilion embodies as an Architectural canon, seeking to use its historical significance as a medium for another message.

This year’s edition confronts the pavilion as a model exemplar of the Modernist ideology as it is architecturally manifest in the distribution of objects and bodies in space. Similarly to Ai Weiwei’s critical position in 2010, Jaque concentrates his intervention on the disjunction between the image of the iconic building and the reality of what it takes to keep it recognizable as such.

Jaque brings to light the ‘support’ space by textually and spatially interrogating both its design intent and material reality. The concept of Free Plan, representative of the Modernists chief transcendental aim, epitomized in the Pavilion, is carefully analyzed in order to subvert its ideological foundation by obstructing its free-flowing spatial propensity. Marble-buffing machines, chemical cleaning products, broken tiles, ladders, dog bowls, worn out curtains and the like are tactfully placed throughout in such a way that the visitor cannot avoid confronting them, so as to face the aesthetic polarity and social binary inherent in the reified Modernist ideology itself.

The concept of transparency, as it was canonically embodied in the Pavilion, is wielded as a weapon and turned against itself by skillfully forcing its material transparency to reveal an ignorance of social transparency and radically undermine the affect of its historical space. Jaque makes the case that the Modernist ideology presupposes and is dependent upon an invisible Other. The argument conjecturally follows that Architecture’s aesthetic dimension does, and therefore must, extend beyond the surface to apprehend its full political operativity in (and for) the face of society. To quote, “the recognition and rearticulation of these two spheres can contribute new possibilities in which architecture finds answers to contemporary challenges.”

It could be further deduced that Jaque claims an inclusive design process can effectively abolish the ostracized Other, prompting investigation into the condition of this so-called post-spatialized Other. If spatial transparency is achieved, will the opaqueness of the Other, not necessarily in terms of social constructions such as class but in terms of immanent bodies in space, not still exist? Or would the condition of Other be universally distributed and internalized, subverting its spectacle-as-Other? Taking note from Jaque’s affinity to the philosophy of Bruno Latour, it could be safe to say his intention lies more in the latter, but it is difficult to ignore the former as a potential consequence of his representational techniques.

It is in the original design of the Pavilion we can find the locus of Jaque’s critique. Directly in front of the stairs at the top of the plinth, laying behind the monumental green butterflied travertine wall that passes the visitor into the central space is a translucent architectural volume. Notably, it’s surfaces are the only pure, uninterrupted, austere, and self-referential (for it is nothing else) ones in the entire Pavilion. This space, located in the center of the plan, conclusively presents itself as the Other to the rest of the modulated and ornamental space.

Encountered again when exiting the interior, this volume is easily perceived as a thin wall, emphasized by its material perception as glass, but a brief look at the floor plan reveals a substantial gap of space in between these two surfaces and exposes a revolutionary and absolutist interpretation of the Gothic concept of poche. Not structural, not functional, not accessible, not obvious and without any content whatsoever, yet significantly eluded to and undeniably felt, this enigmatic Architectural gesture evokes a fundamental opaqueness and unknowability to space and its contents.

In response to its apparent political failures [1], the concept of transparency has been neglected in contemporary discourse. At a point in history like today when a post-financialized architecture can be glimpsed, PHANTOM makes clear that the concept of transparency continues to play a crucial role in the active construction of a political society. Taking the intrinsic opacity as the foundation to make a claim for social equality, Jaque effectively demonstrates that we are prepared for what is to be done.

—Nick Axel (@alucidwake), Barcelona.

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[1] Gadanho, Pedro. Transparency. 9+1 Ways of Being Political: 50 Years of Political Stances in Architecture and Urban Design. MoMA, New York, NY.