PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK OCCASIONS AND THE OCCASIONAL CITY INSTALLATION by Josep Lluís Mateo
(15 to 19 September 2009)
Josep Lluís Mateo presents his book Occasions, which contains the architect’s projects, talks and reflections over the last five years. To coincide with this launch, the practice has devised an ephemeral installation, Occasional City, comprising models and documents of recent projects. The book, published by Actar, will have its public launch on 15 September at Barcelona’s Galeria RAS, the venue of the installation of models and audiovisual material. The book is published in Spanish and English, and will be distributed in over 20 countries. It includes contributions by Stan Allen, Dominique Boudet, Vicente Guallart, José Luis Guerín, Marta Poch, Carlos M. Reis de Figueiredo and Jordi Teixidor. The ephemeral installation will be open to visitors from 15 to 19 September only, at Galeria RAS in Barcelona. “Don’t finish this building (the Catalan Film Theatre). The outline is always much better than the finished product. It’s lovely, Josep Lluís.” José Luís Guerín, film director “Josep Lluís Mateo is one of Spain’s most influential architects and a guest in Nice at this first lecture of 2008. He is an architect with an atypical career. (…) It was a hard training, but one that allowed Mateo to forge his exceptional urban savoir‐faire” Dominique Boudet, Director and editor in chief of AMC French magazine “I try to ensure that my participation is in proportion, establishing a balanced relation between the way I see and feel the commission and the overall project (…) –less painting, more architecture.” Jordi Teixidor, Painter “(…) reflection on the profession also forms part of the practice of an architect, and that this activity should not necessarily be given up to professional theorists or academics.” Stan Allen, Dean of the School of Architecture at Princeton University
THE BOOK: OCCASIONS
Image: Ferran Mateo Click on the image for a high‐resolution download. The author of the image must be cited.
Occasions refers to the specificity of our actions and puts distance between itself and the generic approach. Operating as an architect, I have to go up to phenomena; I cannot merely explain them from the distance that renders them uniform and dilute. I am interested in the viewpoint that causes experiences and ideas to materialize in a unique, special way. In consequence, rather than proposing a practice of general, abstract, generic architecture, Occasions seeks to understand it and to describe it as the product of an intelligence and a specific sensibility. Occasions points out that our work is always an opportunity to understand and establish active relations with the world. Josep Lluís Mateo
EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK:
THE INSTALLATION: OCCASIONAL CITY
OCCASIONAL CITY is an ideal city consisting of fragments of cities in which we have been invited to work. It is global and local, comprised of order and hierarchy (despite being fortuitous), and it organizes our responses on the occasions when we have been asked. The installation is made up of a fragment of this ideal city that contains actual models, screenings and audiovisual material in a programme that will be publicized in August 2009.
Photomontage with fragments of cities represented by Josep Lluís Mateo’s Occasional City. Click on the image for a high‐resolution download.
The installation will be open to the public from 15 to 19 September 2009 at the RAS gallery in Barcelona. The opening will take place at 8 pm in the evening on Tuesday 15 September. RAS is at number 10, Carrer Doctor Dou in Barcelona.
Model of the project for the new Camp Nou. Click on the image for a high‐resolution download.
Model of the hotel in Shanghai, included in the installation. Click on the image for a high‐resolution download.
THE ARCHITECT: JOSEP LLUÍS MATEO
Barcelona‐born (1949) Josep Lluís Mateo graduated in Architecture in 1974 from the ETSAB and gained his doctorate (cum laude) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 1994. He has been Professor of the Architecture and Projects Department at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich (ETH‐Z) since 2002. He has also taught at various universities and lectured at foremost international academic institutions. He was Visiting Scholar at the Jean P. Getty Center in Los Angeles from 1991 to 1992. In 2009, Josep Lluís Mateo was named President of the Board of Directors of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture. Josep Lluís Mateo entered into association with Marta Cervelló in 1995, since when they have directed the practice together. Recent work (selection): The head office of the Bundesbank in Chemnitz, Germany (First Prize, international competition) 1996‐2004 Barcelona International Convention Centre (First Prize, international public competition) 2000‐ 2004 Banc Sabadell: Standard office (First Prize, invited competition) 2002; renovation of the bank’s historical head office in Plaça Sant Roc, Sabadell, 2004‐2006; interventions in the bank’s Torre Diagonal in Barcelona, 2009 Sant Jordi Hall of Residence (First Prize, national public competition) 2001‐2006 Largo da Devesa park in Castelo Branco, Portugal. 2000‐2007 Office building for WTC Almeda Park in Cornellà, Barcelona (First Prize, invited competition) 2004‐ 2007 Film Theatre of Catalonia in Barcelona (First Prize, national invited competition) 2005‐2010 Extension of the office building for PGGM insurance company in Zeist, Holland (First Prize, international invited competition) 2002‐2010 The office building in Boulogne‐Billancourt, Paris (First Prize, invited competition) 2006‐2010 At the planning stage, after winning the corresponding national competitions, are, among others: ‐ Draga‐Sibenik Complex, Croatia (First Prize, invited competition, 2009). ‐ Renovation of El Ninot central market in Barcelona (First Prize, national public competition, 2008). ‐ Dr Josep Trueta General Hospital in Girona, Spain (First Prize, invited competition, 2006). ‐ Women’s prison in St. Llorenç d’Hortons, Barcelona (First Prize, invited competition, 2005). ‐ Apartment building in Valencia for the Sociopolis Project (shown at New York’s MoMA as part of the exhibition “Spain: On Site”) ‐ Remodelling of the riverfront in Bayonne, France (First Prize, invited competition, 2006).
Exhibitions (selection): 2009 Galería Ras, Barcelona. “Occasional City” 2006 MoMA, New York. “Spain: On Site”. Group exhibition. Housing block in Valencia 2004 Arkitekturgalerie Aedes, Berlin. “Organic versus Inorganic” 1998 Col∙legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya, Barcelona Awards (selection): ‐ Top International Purpose‐Built Venue 2008, C&IT magazine. First Prize for the best international building to host events, conventions and congresses. CCIB‐Barcelona International Convention Centre ‐ 2008 Archizinc Award, First Prize. Sant Jordi Students’ Hall of Residence, Barcelona ‐ Contract World 2006, Second Prize. AC Hotel ‐ 15th Award of Grupo Dragados de Arquitectura and the CEOE Foundation 2001, First Prize for the apartment building in Borneo Docks, Amsterdam (Holland) ‐ 1991 Santander Spanish Architecture Biennial. The remodelling of the old town of Ullastret was considered one of the best Spanish architecture projects of the ‘80s. ‐ 1991 ITALSTAT Award for Young European Architects Publications: Monographs (Selection): Josep Lluís Mateo, Opere e progetti, Electa (Milan, 2007) Josep Lluís Mateo, Works, Projects and Writings, Ediciones Polígrafa (Barcelona, 2005) Josep Lluís Mateo, World Architecture, Tsinghua University (Beijing, 2003) Josep Lluís Mateo, Recent Work, 2G, Gustavo Gili (Barcelona, 2003) Mateo Atlas, Actar, Ministerio de Fomento and COAC (Barcelona, 1998) Josep Lluís Mateo. Ideen und Bauten, Birkhäuser Verlag (Basel, 1995) Josep Lluís Mateo, "Catálogos de Arquitectura Contemporánea" collection, Gustavo Gili (Barcelona, 1992) Books (writings): Textos instrumentales. GG (Barcelona, 2007) Bauen und Denken. Quart (Lucerne, 2002) Books published by the Chair of Professor Mateo (ETH‐Zurich): Iconoclastia. News from a Post‐Iconic World. Architectural Papers IV. ETH‐Actar, 2009 Global Housing Projects. ETH‐Actar, 2008 Natural Metaphor. Architectural Papers III. ETH ‐ Actar, 2007 Big Scale. Grossform. Architectural Papers II. ETH ‐ Gustavo Gili, 2006 Object Laboratory. Architectural Papers I. ETH – Gustavo Gili, 2005 Further information at www.mateo‐arquitectura.com
Photo: Jordi Belver. Click on the image for a high‐resolution download. The author of the image must be cited.
In addition to the images in this dossier, more graphic material can be downloaded at: www.scoopcomunicacion.com/mateo
If you would like to arrange an interview with the architect, please contact:
Yvette Colomer / Pati Núñez
arquitectura@scoopcomunicacion.com pati@scoopcomunicacion.com Doctor Rizal, 8 local 1 08006 Barcelona T +34 934 154 653 M +34 622 296 657 www.scoopcomunicacion.com