The Model, Barcelona Architecture Festival returns from April 20 to 30. In this second edition, the organizers follow the trail left by last year’s event with an eye on the world capital of architecture in 2026, although the will is for the festival to continue beyond this date.
If last year projects were created and activities were carried out in different parts of the city, this time the celebration will be located especially in the surroundings of the Glòries park. There will be proposals of all kinds, from debates and routes to activities with virtual reality and temporary constructions that will seek to generate debates around architecture but also around the city through the motto ‘Radical Empathy’. The choice of setting is justified because it is a space “that is both past and future”, in the words of the second deputy mayor for Ecology, Urban Planning, Infrastructures and Mobility, Janet Sanz.
For the artistic director of the festival, Eva Franch, the main objective is to “bring complex and important ideas closer” to the public through the different proposals. “What surprises us is what makes us think,” she stresses. For this reason, the festival will be structured around five major axes (Between-classes, Between-generations, Between-species, Between-cultures and Between-subjects). Five axes each represented by an ephemeral installation that will last as long as the festival is held.
In the case of Entre-clases, the so-called Nomad Assembly will be set up, which will turn the Encants market area into a space built with reused materials from the market itself where different activities and debates will be carried out, always encouraging participation and reflection. The aim of this installation is to explain how to create urban environments that are more equal and accessible to everyone. In addition, coinciding with the day of Sant Jordi, on April 23, an architecture book fair will be held there.
The Between-generations category, which seeks to investigate the way in which we relate between generations, will manifest itself with the Free Air structure, designed by the architect David Knoblauch and which will be installed in the Josep Antoni Coderch square. This installation, as its name indicates, will focus on the air and its qualities and will also be able to measure and capture the contamination present in that element.
The third temporary installation is called Wild Surface and will be related to the Between-species axis. It will be located on the roof of the Ona Glòries car park and will consist of a surface with mycelium, a type of fungus, which will make it possible to produce nests for bees and other pollinating insects. With this, we want to reflect on architecture as something that is beneficial and useful for other animals beyond the human being.
The fourth category, Between-cultures, will manifest itself through an installation called MamÃfera. The number 823 of Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes will thus become a collective space with free access to breastfeed or bottle-feed babies, allowing in turn a reflection on the collectivization of care and breastfeeding .
Finally, the last installation responds to the name of Permanently Temporary and will be found in the Gran Clariana area. In his case, the question to be asked is whether it is necessary to continue extracting new materials to continue building. Therefore, the installation will be made with materials reused from warehouses and construction or demolition spaces.
In this year’s edition, the launch of the Model awards also stands out as a novelty. These awards, endowed with €1,000 each, have rewarded 15 proposals for activities related in some way to the different axes and objectives of the festival.
