Vogadors/Architectural Rowers

Vogadors/Architectural Rowers, Institut Ramon Llull’s project that represented Catalonia and the Balearic Islands during the 13^th Venice’s Architecture Biennial, is going to be exhibited in Barcelona’s Fabra i Coats - Centre d'Art Contemporani.

After its successful participation in two editions (2009, 2011) of Venice’s Art Biennial, Institut Ramon Llull showcased in 2012 its exhibition proposal within the framework of the Architecture Biennial. The exhibit was Vogadors/Architectural Rowers, curated by Jordi Badia and Felix Arranz, a project that highlights the importance of an austere architecture based on the respect to the environment and users, in an effort to promote the debate on new architecture trends and connect Catalonian and Balearic architectural creation with the international context.

The exhibition is being presently showcased in Barcelona so as to shed light on proposals that represent the influence of our creation overseas.

Starting on June 28^th, Fabra i Coats - Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona will be housing the 9 artworks included in the show by some of the most outstanding Catalonian and Balearic young architects, who share the same sensibility and illustrate a different way of doing things, as an answer to the growing social demand of what’s necessary for people to live their lives, which is diametrically opposed to the most spectacular and media architecture.

The takes Basque artist Jorge Oteiza’s phrase as starting point, in which he uses the image of rowers (vogadors, in Catalan) who move on backwards, to support a way of advancing, reaching the future: looking to the past, to the shared cultural heritage. Following that concept, this group of project bet on a sober and materially simple architecture, but featuring technical and intellectual sophistication, gifted with a strong ethic and social component. Facing an extraordinary context for architecture, this new generation of architects tries to sail in the turbulent waters of the present to find its way, moving to the future with a conspiratorial look to the past.