The tribute will take place from April 15 to December 23, 2021, and are curated by Benedetta Tagliabue and Joan Roig, and organized by the Enric Miralles Foundation with the support of the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat de Catalunya, in collaboration with l ' Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura (ETSAB), the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC) and the architecture studio Miralles Tagliabue EMBT.
Guide map of the exhibitions dedicated to Enric Miralles: Miralles, a tribute that remembers the architect in all his facets.
Description by Enric Miralles Foundation
Fundació Enric Miralles, with the support of the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat of Catalonia, is promoting a tribute to Enric Miralles, one of the most emblematic figures in contemporary Catalan architecture, whose death marking 20 years this past 2020.
MIRALLES is a program of exhibitions and activities that shows the public the legacy that the architect left, with works in Barcelona -a city where he lived and worked-, Catalonia and worldwide. The tribute addresses his different facets as a creator: architect, designer, photographer and teacher, offering a multifaceted and personal look at his career.
The activities of MIRALLES are curated by Benedetta Tagliabue (Miralles Tagliabue EMBT) and Joan Roig i Duran (Batlle i Roig), and organized by Fundació Enric Miralles with the support of the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat of Catalonia through their Departments of Presidency, Culture and Territory and Sustainability, in collaboration with the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC) and the Miralles Tagliabue EMBT architecture studio.
"This tribute not only wants to remember the human and professional figure of Enric Miralles, but also wants to keep the spirit of the visionary, of the experimentalist, alive, as a way of working and seeing the world. And to leave his legacy also for the future generations."
Benedetta Tagliabue.
The program extends to representative spaces of the city of Barcelona, starting with the Saló del Tinell, which is home to the exhibition about Miralles as architect, and also was chosen to host in 1956 the first retrospective of another illustrious architect of the city, Antoni Gaudí. The other venues for the activities, which are also emblematic, will be at the Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Disseny Hub of Barcelona City Council, the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC), the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) and the Fundació Enric Miralles.
Through these spaces a "Miralles circuit" has been designed that can be visited at various times of the year and that is accessible to all audiences. Thanks to the different formats: talks, debates, photography, videos, plans, drawings, models, notebooks, sketches, collages... anyone, whether or not linked to the world of architecture, can get closer to the human figure life of one of the most international contemporary Catalan architects.
Miralles has an exceptionally prolific career: in just 26 years of profession, from 1974 to 2000, he received 62 awards, participated in 68 competitions and was a finalist in many others. In addition, he has carried out installations and executed different projects. Among all these aspects, a total of 225 works and projects are collected in different countries such as Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Japan, Austria, Argentina, United States, Brazil, Greece, Finland, France, USA, England, Ireland, Switzerland, and Denmark.
He taught in Barcelona, Frankfurt, and at the most prestigious universities in the United States such as Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale. He is the most studied and imitated architect by students in the western and eastern world. The foundation that treasures his legacy receives more than 2,000 visits from all over the world each year. The tribute prioritizes the documentation and materials that Miralles made in his lifetime, some of them unpublished, which will come out of the archive for the first time. But MIRALLES is also an act of affirmation of the heritage it has left in the history of architecture and in the academic world, extending its gaze to the imprint that the EMBT studio has been able to follow.
TRIBUTE EXHIBITIONS AND ACTIVITIES
- MIRALLES. A quarts de quatre...
At the Saló del Tinell,a vision of Miralles as architect, focused on four built projects and benchmarks of modern European architecture, and which also represent a milestone in his life. The Igualada Park Cemetery (1985-1991…) is his “inaugural” work and embodies the work with the topography of the place; the Basketball Pavilion in Huesca (1994) was chosen to be one of the first big buildings of his career and because its roofs, stands out as an architectural element; the Santa Caterina Market (1997) is the most linked to Barcelona, it is a project that acts with the heart of the city and the neighborhood, and in which the architect establishes respect and dialogue with the history of the place. Finally, the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh (2004) was chosen as Miralles’s masterpiece that captures all of his architectural experience and practice, and was probably his greatest challenge. The exhibition is designed by Benedetta Tagliabue and Joan Roig i Duran, the museography by the architecture studio Miralles Tagliabue EMBT in collaboration with the architect Victoria Garriga. The lighting project is designed by Maria Güell from La Invisible.
At The Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica, it shows the collages and photomontages that strongly identify the way of expression of Enric Miralles. Photographs of family and professional trips, photomontages and projections are just a part of the architect's private archive that can be seen in an unpublished way, during this exhibition, curated by Salvador Gilabert Sanz, professor, and head of projects at Miralles Tagliabue EMBT. Miralles used this format systematically for different purposes, fragmenting, reconstructing, and re-reconstructing reality, inspired by the cubism of Picasso or David Hockney. It is the first time that such a wide exhibition focuses on this facet of the architect. The exhibition includes nearly 170 collages from his archive. The exhibition support for the collages was designed by Miralles in 1995 and has been produced for the first time for this exhibition.
- MIRALLES. To be continued...
At the Fundació Enric Miralles, the exhibition will show the work that the Miralles Tagliabue EMBT studio has done in the last twenty years. One of the fundamental objectives of the Fundació is the preservation of the work, the ideas and the creative spirit of the architect for the benefit of all generations. With a selection of models, sketches, photographs, correspondences, collages, and projections, the Fundació Enric Miralles will present an exhibition that collects the legacy left by the author and marked the trajectory that still follows the Miralles Tagliabue EMBT architecture studio.
This exhibition project is designed by Victoria Garriga and the architecture studio Miralles Tagliabue EMBT, coordinated by Beatriz Mínguez de Molina and will feature reflections by Martha Thorne.
- MIRALLES. Perpetuum Mobile
In the Disseny Hub, it will be showcased the work of Enric as a designer. An exhibition that will feature furniture and unreleased objects, such as the 'Inestable', 'Dolmen', 'Troncos' and 'Tropical' tables, the 'Lelukaappi' shelf inspired by the work of the architect Alvar Aalto, and several chairs and unpublished lamps. All this along with plans, drawings, and sketches of the projects, which will be shown together for the first time. The furniture and objects are unique pieces that he designed along his life for his own use. Enric Miralles managed to turn an inert object into a moving and constantly evolving piece. The exhibition, curated by Benedetta Tagliabue and Joan Roig i Duran, with the support of the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) with wood donated by AE Maderas, will feature projections that will allow the public to see the furniture in motion. An example is the ‘Inestable table, which has 20 different positions. The lighting project for this exhibition is by Maria Güell from La Invisible.
- MIRALLES. Converses
A series of public conferences will take place at the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC). Conversations in which different characters, teachers, professional partners, collaborators, and friends who knew the Catalan architect personally and professionally will take part. Meetings between Rafael Moneo and Benedetta Tagliabue, Liz Diller and Beatriz Colomina; and Soraya Smithson and Carme Pinós.
- MIRALLES. A l’escola
At the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), the exhibition shows his academic work as a teacher will be taught, both in Barcelona and in the rest of the world. This is a very important facet of Enric Miralles, which although it left a lot of international impact, is poorly documented. All its stages in the academic field at a European and a world level will be covered, remembering when he began as a full professor at the Barcelona School of Architecture ETSAB, in 1984, or when he was a professor at the Harvard University, with the Kenzo Tange Chair since 1992. This exhibition is curated by Carme Ribas and Ton Salvadó.
Along this year new exhibitions and presentations will be added to the events framed in the MIRALLES tribute.
