Vicente Guallart presents his “Logica Natural” at IVAM, Valencia



"If Architecture is landscape, buildings are mountains," the Barcelona-based architect Vicente Guallart claimed in an aphorism in 1998. By searching for logic in nature and combining that with research into the latest technologies, techniques and social developments, Guallart has developed an architecture that responds to the specific environment in which it appears with inhabitable Structures that offer human versions of both the visible and invisible landscapes shaped by geological, biological and computational forces.



Guallart cuts through the notion of architecture as the production of a building or urban plan. Instead, he moves through scales, connecting the construction of concrete or steel with the tectonic structure of a mountain, the microscopic geometries of a mineral, and the complex formation of a tree into a forms out of which he composes his buildings. Nor is his field of investigation only that of geology and biology. He finds similar patterns in our rituals of everyday life and in the movements of peoples through urban landscapes. He intersects these structures with material
investigations to build a repertory of forms that responds in a more fundamental way to the social, economic and physical geography of the modern city. The result is what he calls a "re-naturalization of the territory," in which buildings grow out of and critically respond to the world in which they arise.



The exhibition includes a selection of drawings, diagrams, videos, models and prototypes of his most acclaimed projects, such as the Fugee Harbor Covers in Taiwan, the Artificial Mountain in Denia, and the Sharing Tower of Sociopolis, which was also exhibited at the MOMA's exhibition on recent Spanish Architecture in 2006.

At IVAM, Valencia, the exhibition will be staged in the "Sala de la muralla," since September 13th until November 11th, a space of 1000 square meters that contains the lower part of an impressive 70 meter-long wall built in the Middle Age. The exhibition will show models, prototypes and video projections floating over the wall and thus reacting to this physical and human geographical event.



The exhibition will display pieces produced through the use the last digital fabrication techniques. These will include a 3 meter-long topographical model of Denia Mountain (selected for the Venice Biennal in 2004) produced with a CNC router out of high density polystyrene. The exhibition will also include wooden parametric rocks (part of the keeling Harbour project, in Taiwan) and a video that will how Mr. Guallart uses a parametric element to produced using dynamic data. This technology will be used also to show the parametric tree in a prototype 1,8 meters high that was used for the competition of the Spanish pavilion in Shanghai Expo. The exhibition will show model and images from projects already built, such as the wooden platforms in Vinaros (Spain) and the tourist apartment in Cambrils (Spain). The Sociopolis master plan, one of the most important urban developments in Europe, currently under construction in Valencia, will be displayed with a 2 by 2 meter model.

Finally the exhibition include some of the Guallart latest projects, such as the artificial mountain for Wrocalw (Poland), a project selected for that city's candidature for the Expo 2012. The exhibition will end with the video "The Re-Naturalization of the Territory."



The show can be visited digitally through the blog: www.guallartblog.com which includes images of the fabrication process of the prototypes and building.



Valencia building

LOGICA NATURAL. Vicente Guallart @ IVAM
Valencia Sep 13 - Nov 11 2007
Curated by Aaron Betsky and Consuelo Ciscar

Barcelona buildings

IVAM (Valencia)
www.ivam.es; www.guallart.com
Information : laia@guallart.com / +34 933248692

Spanish Architect : Rafael Moneo

Valencia building - America’s Cup Building : RIBA European Award 2007



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Spanish Architecture

Vicente Guallart Valencia : page - adrian welch / isabelle lomholt