One Zodiac. Juan Navarro Baldeweg [VIDEO]

On the occasion of the exhibition "One Zodiac. Juan Navarro Baldeweg" held at the Museum ICO from 8 October to 1 February, the Spanish architect he met in the rooms of this exhibition, curated by himself.

Exhibition views. One Zodiac. Juan Navarro Baldeweg.

During the interview, Navarro Baldeweg reveals the keys to its architecture, faithfully reflected in the sample, with comments from some of the projects in the exhibition.

When contemplating this collection of works, I think it is relevant to establish connections between them, no matter how far in time or different they may be, as if they were part of a zodiac, a ring of constellations, a ring of rings. If we adopt the appropriate perspective, we easily find a common determination, which is the essence and purpose of my work: making space visible, which in its deeper sense is nothing, and sharing that experience. The space lacks qualities. Its properties are explained by what happens in it: light in light; support in gravitation and balances; the expanded body, the hand in space; doing and undo ing, the conscience of building, which is also destroying... and by our experience linked to those essential coordinates in which things are harbored. A common determination governs the interrelation among paintings, projects, sculptures and installations, and goes and is transferred from one work to another.

Juan Navarro Baldeweg. Exhibition catalog.

More information about the exhibition here.

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Knowledge Institute of Amersfoort, 2003-2009. Photography © Duccio Malagamba ©Juan Navarro Baldeweg. Courtesy Fundación ICO.

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More information

Juan Navarro Baldeweg

Juan Navarro Baldeweg was born in Santander in 1939, he studied drawing and painting there between 1951 and 1956. He trained in printmaking at the San Fernando School of Fine Arts in Madrid starting in 1959. The following year, he held his first painting exhibition at the Fernando Fe Gallery, also in Madrid. He subsequently enrolled at the Higher Technical School of Architecture in Madrid, where he earned his degree in architecture in 1965 and his doctorate in 1969. Since 1975, he has served as a design professor at the school. In 1974, a Juan March Foundation scholarship allowed him to travel to the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was a student of György Kepes, to complete and develop his research. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Pennsylvania, Yale, and Princeton Universities, as well as at the Higher Technical School of Architecture in Barcelona. Since 2003, he has been a full member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

A nationally and internationally renowned architect, he has developed numerous public projects and buildings, many resulting from competitions. These include the Casa de la Lluvia in Santander, the Congress and Exhibition Center of Castilla y León in Salamanca, the Museum of Human Evolution in Burgos, the Teatros del Canal and the Municipal Library of San Francisco el Grande in Madrid, the Cultural Center in Villanueva de la Cañada, the Woolsworth Center and the library of the Faculty of Music at Princeton University, as well as the Biblioteca Hertziana in Rome and the Altamira Museum in Cantabria.

At the same time, his autonomous and experimental artistic work has been the subject of more than twenty solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions, and is represented in important collections and institutions such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the IVAM (Valencia), the CGAC (Santiago de Compostela), the Museo Patio Herreriano (Valladolid), the Museum of Fine Arts of Vitoria, the Caja de Pensiones Foundation (Barcelona), the Malmö Museum (Sweden), the Dobe Collection (Zurich), The Art Institute (Chicago), the Museum of Architecture of the Technical University of Munich and the Getty Villa (Los Angeles).

Main awards:

2024 Premio Luis Gutiérrez Soto del Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (COAM), en reconocimiento a su trayectoria profesional.
2019 Medalla de Honor de la Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo (UIMP).
2014 National Architecture Award.
2012 Premio a la Trayectoria Profesional en la VIII Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura y Urbanismo.
2012 Premio Tomás Francisco Prieto 2012.
2010 Premio Juan de Herrera del Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Cantabria.
2009 Premio X Bienal Española de Arquitectura.
2008 Medalla de Oro de la Arquitectura, Consejo Superior de Arquitectos de España, 2008.
2007 Medalla de Oro al Mérito de las Bellas Artes 2007.
2005 Premios Villa de Madrid 2005. Premio de Escultura “Mariano Benlliure” a Juan Navarro Baldeweg por la exposición Esculturas realizada en la Galería Marlborough, Madrid.
2003 Premio a la actuación temporal por la Exposición Universo Gaudí en el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. XVII Premios de Urbanismo, Arquitectura y Obra Pública correspondiente al 2002. Ayuntamiento de Madrid Académico numerario de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.
2001 Honorary Fellow of The American Institute of Architects.
2000 Académico electo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid. Homenaje a Juan Navarro Baldeweg en ARPAfil 2000, XIV Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.
1998 Premio Heinrich Tessenow 1998.
1990 Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas.