The Arquia Foundation has just published its video book number 40. With it, the filming of the congress and debates of Anyway is recovered, at the CCCB of Barcelona on June 4, 5 and 6, 1993, an exceptional document, accompanied by a text by José Juan Barba.

What makes this film a document outstanding, or as film and architecture critic, Jorge Gorostiza has said in a recent review, after his viewing you would like to see more: "it began to interest me more and more, until I finished it, wanting the collection to have been longer." The contents and text of Barba give some answers, and surely the reader can make contributions and suggestions, or better understand the reasons after viewing.
The history of this documentary begins in 1993 with the celebration of the congress in facilities transformed today, whose entrance was produced by the street Valldonzella street, while the CCCB remained in works. From that congress, a documentary was taken, over twenty years ago, and in the bookstore of the Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, Barba discovered it as a videotape in its black and white version (the reader can find some loose fragments of the colour video, in a lower resolution).
 
"At first, I thought I had only found one interesting document. But, with the passage of time, its value has been increased, because it not only remains relevant for its contents but for the reactions of surprise or interest that, systematically, produces in those who view it."
José Juan Barba
 
Filming is also a document of extraordinary value that helps us to know a reality hitherto unpublished. This is because, as is often the case when editing the content of the congresses in an attempt to transcribe what happened in them - in this case, the work was done a year later - the interventions were noticeably transformed: because they lost much of the argumentative content of the conferences because they marked their relevance, or because they emphasized aspects different from the original ones.

The lectures and the topics discussed and addressed could be raised tomorrow, which conveys its current validity. Borders, walls, identity, violence, women in architecture, the shape of architecture, places and people that give meaning to architecture, were some of the topics talked about and discussed.

In all this, the reader and viewer will also try to see the intelligence, contradictions, doubts, successes and mistakes that both at the time they occurred show a debate about the architecture that catches you, as well as its validity, and the relevance of proposals of many of its participants, who have conditioned and marked the architecture of this last quarter of a century.

It provides a fundamental vision to understand the process of architectural criticism and its paradigm shift in the 1990s, the basis of the current one.
 
The Anyway congress took place at the Center for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB) on June 4, 5 and 6, 1993, as part of a set of annual congresses, organized by the architects; Peter Eisenman, Ignasi de Solà-Morales i Rubió and Arata Isozaki between 1991/2000, held every June in a different city.

This is an exceptional audiovisual edition because the congress referred to was the platform used by different architects to expose activities, thoughts, project processes and subsequent realization of their works.

It is a living document that reveals how writings, ideas and speeches interact in the real world, with errors, omissions, with the necessary improvisation to respond to the unexpected.

The participants, the protagonists, are referents of our contemporary culture with recognized trajectories. They are especially relevant because they have shaped, with successes and contradictions, the culture in which we have formed and continue to form.

More information

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Title
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CONGRESO ANYWAY. La ciudad de las ciudades
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Text Author
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Measures / Pages
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Book. Number of pages.- 81
Documentary.- DVD. Time.- 108´min.
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Language
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Book language.- Spanish.
DVD language.- Spanish, English, French, Italian, Catalan.
DVD subtitle language.- Spanish.
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Publishing house
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Dates
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Publication date.- 2019. New.- 2020.
Year of production, documentary film.- 1993.
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Production
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Barcelona, Spain.
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ISBN
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9788412104240
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Deposito legal
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M-32060-2019
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José Juan Barba (1964) architect from ETSA Madrid in 1991. Special Mention in the National Finishing University Education Awards 1991. PhD in Architecture ETSAM, 2004. He founded his professional practice in Madrid in 1992 (www.josejuanbarba.com). He has been an architecture critic and editor-in-chief of METALOCUS magazine since 1999, and he advised different NGOs until 1997. He has been a lecturer (in Design, Theory and Criticism, and Urban planning) and guest lecturer at different national and international universities (Roma TRE, Polytechnic Milan, ETSA Madrid, ETSA Barcelona, UNAM Mexico, Univ. Iberoamericana Mexico, University of Thessaly Volos, FA de Montevideo, Washington, Medellin, IE School, U.Alicante, Univ. Europea Madrid, UCJC Madrid, ESARQ-U.I.C. Barcelona,...).

Maître de Conférences IUG-UPMF Grenoble 2013-14. Full assistant Professor, since 2003 up to now at the University of Alcalá School of Architecture, Madrid, Spain. And Jury in competitions as Quaderns editorial magazine (2011), Mies van der Rohe Awards, (2010-2024), Europan13 (2015). He has been invited to participate in the Biennale di Venezia 2016 as part "Spaces of Exception / Spazi d'Eccezione".

He has published several books, the last in 2016, "#positions" and in 2015 "Inventions: New York vs. Rem Koolhaas, Bernard Tschumi, Piranesi " and collaborations on "Spaces of Exception / Spazi d'Eccezione", "La Mansana de la discordia" (2015), "Arquitectura Contemporánea de Japón: Nuevos territorios" (2015)...

Awards.-

- Award. RENOVATION OF SEGURA RIVER ENVIRONMENT, Murcia, Sapin, 2010.
- First Prize, RENOVATION GRAN VÍA, “Delirious Gran Vía”, Madrid, Spain, 2010.
- First Prize, “PANAYIOTI MIXELI Award”. SADAS-PEA, for the Spreading of Knowledge of Architecture Athens, 2005.
- First Prize, “SANTIAGO AMÓN Award," for the Spreading of Knowledge of Architecture. 2000.
- Award, “PIERRE VAGO Award." ICAC -International Committee of Art Critics. London, 2005.
- First Prize, C.O.A.M. Madrid, 2000. Shortlisted, World Architecture Festival. Centro de Investigación e Interpretación de los Ríos. Tera, Esla y Orbigo, Barcelona, 2008.
- First Prize. FAD AWARD 07 Ephemeral Interventions. “M.C.ESCHER”. Arquin-Fad. Barcelona, Sapin 2007.

Read more
Published on: January 23, 2020
Cite: "ANYWAY CONGRESS. The city of the cities, by José Juan Barba" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/anyway-congress-city-cities-jose-juan-barba> ISSN 1139-6415
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