Piranesi said after travelling from Rome to Venice and realising how difficult it would be in that period of crisis to mange to build things like those he imagined and saw in the ruins, that since there was no hope for architects of his time to really execute anything similar, he didn’t see for himself, or for any other architect of his era, any other possibility than explaining his ideas by imagining the impossible.

In the past, architects knew what to expect after finishing their degree. In reality, nobody considered other alternatives than what seemed to be a small bunch of unambiguous possibilities, typical and predictable channels of professional development.

Nowadays, it’s clear that the situation has mutated. Things are different, there are multiple channels, and even the ways we practise them are being reinvented. Just recall some of the examples in the first edition published two years ago (For example, the article whose link we have provided at the end: Arquitectos tenderos y ¡a mucha honra!)

Today, more and more, the way we see the reality has been reinvented. Monolithic ideas are viewed in a fractured way and then are constructed again in a new, equally valid reality.

The psychotherapist in the series In Treatment (a story based on the successful Israeli series of the same name), Paul, reconstructs the ideas of his patients from Monday to Thursday, a new reality for his narrators, leaving Friday for he himself to go to therapy with his colleague and friend of many years, Gina. During the sessions we learn about the various characters and the conflicts they confront.

The actors that participate in the first season of INTREATMENT [>2] - METALOCUS, are young architects looking for their own identity every week.

In this second season of INTREATMENT [>2] - METALOCUS project and when we first discussed the idea about a reconstruction of an architectural In Treatment, I remembered how METALOCUS was born of the same interests Fourteen years ago:

the need to explain reality in a different way than we were seeing it being narrated, knowing full well that interpretation was a common cause among the architects of that generation.

IN TREATMENT [>2] – METALOCUS will be the sofa where a series of architects will talk about reality kaleidoscopically, their reality. Using Yi Fu Tuan’s definition of place, they will build a place for contemporary architecture relating what they think about this reality, in this reality and with this reality. What links all the guests together is that they are architects far from the city where they studied, and the majority are even far from the country where they thought they would be professionally based.

Faraway from their city, from a reality that doesn’t exist, building a reality around a void. INTREATMENT [>2] - METALOCUS Thank you to the participants and thank you especially to the readers. Enjoy!

The architects of the second season:

JAVIER SANCHO
FRANCISCO PELAEZ
MICHAEL MORADIELLOS
MELISSA SCHUMACHER
VERÓNICA ROSERO
AINHOA MARTÍN


... and more if you send us contributions during the 2nd edition that are interesting. It is a vote to invite everyone to participate!

 

More information

José Juan Barba (1964) is an architect, graduated from ETSA Madrid (1991), and holds a Doctorate in Architecture from ETSA Madrid, awarded Cum laude for his thesis Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2004). He received a special mention in the National Awards for Completion of Studies (1991) and served as an advisor to various NGOs until 1997. He founded his studio in Madrid in 1992 (www.josejuanbarba.com). 

Barba is an architecture critic and has been the director of METALOCUS magazine since 1999. Since 1998, he has directed the International Architecture Magazine METALOCUS (bilingual, Spanish/English), which has been recognized with multiple national and international awards.

He is a Full Professor at the University of Alcalá, leading the project line of the Habilitation Master's Architecture and City, responsible for several courses in Theory and Criticism, heading the Urban Planning area of the Department of Architecture, and participating in the research group Architecture, History, City, and Landscape at UAH. He has been invited to numerous architecture and urbanism forums, including the II Forum of Mexican Cities World Heritage: Urban Development, History, and Modernity, organized by the Pan-American Committee for Urban Development and Historical Heritage, and the World Urban Development Forum (FMDU) in Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico. He has also participated in the International Architecture and Urbanism Conferences from the perspective of women architects, and has lectured at prestigious national and international universities, including the National Building Museum (Washington, DC), Roma TRE, Politecnico di Milano, UPMF Grenoble, ETSA Madrid, ETSA Barcelona, University of Thessaly (Volos), UNAM Mexico, the Faculty of Architecture Montevideo, schools of architecture in Medellín, Quito-Ecuador, Alicante, Málaga, Granada, Seville, A Coruña, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico, IE School, Universidad Europea Madrid, UCJC Madrid, ESARQ-UIC Barcelona, or Università Degli Studi di Genova.

Barba has extensive professional experience in architecture, urban planning, landscape design, and territorial recovery. He has received numerous awards, including the First Prize for Gran Vía Posible for Delirious Gran Vía (Madrid), the River Interpretation Center (Zamora), exhibited at the World Architecture Festival (Barcelona 2008), Santa Bárbara Park (Toledo), the Erich Degner Architecture Prize 1995 promoted by the BBVA Foundation, and his Day Care Center for the Elderly project, featured in Volume 3 of the COAM Madrid Architecture Guide (2007). His work has been published in numerous national and international books and magazines.

He was also Maître de Conférences at IUG-UPMF Grenoble (2013–14), in a position obtained through a European competition. His work has been published internationally. He regularly serves on academic juries, including the editorial competition of Quaderns magazine (2011), as a selector for the Mies van der Rohe Awards (2007–2026), as juror for EUROPAN13 Spain (2015–16), TRANSFER in Zurich (2019), and was invited to participate in the Venice Biennale 2016 as part of the exhibition Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione.

He has published several books, including The Dark Line. michele&miquel, dA Vision Design (2024), CONGRESO ANYWAY. The City of Cities (2020), #Positions (2016), and Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi (2015). He has contributed to other publications such as Public Space Gran Vía. The Tourism City (2020), Spaces of Exception / Spazi d’Eccezione (2016), La mansana de la discordia (2015), and Contemporary Architecture of Japan: New Territories (2015), as well as chapters in numerous books including Architects: A Professional Challenge (2009), 21st Century Architectures (2007), Ruta de la Plata, New Conquerors of Space (2019), and The Tourism City (2020).

Selected awards include:

- “PIERRE VAGO” ICAC. International Committee of Art Critics Award, London, 2005
- “PANAYIOTI MIXELI AWARD,” SADAS-PEA, award for the promotion of architecture, Athens, 2005
- “SANTIAGO AMÓN” AWARD, award for the promotion of architecture, COAM Madrid, 2000
- FAD Award 07, Ephemeral Interventions, First Prize, M.C. Escher Exhibition, Arquin-FAD, Barcelona, 2007
- World Architecture Festival, Center for Research and Interpretation of the Rivers, Tera, Esla, and Órbigo, Finalist, Barcelona, 2008
- Gran Vía Posible, First Prize, Delirious Gran Vía, Madrid, 2010
- Reform of the Río Segura Surroundings, Award, Murcia, 2010

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Published on: January 10, 2013
Cite:
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
"IN TREATMENT [>2] METALOCUS" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/treatment-2-metalocus> ISSN 1139-6415
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