These spaces, which are completed with the shadow drawn on the floor of the outer space and accompanied by more precise documentation, with plans, photographs and videos, (a whole set of elements accompanied by small details that expand the presentation) developing the seven themes that respectively the exhibition is divided and addressed: climate awareness, active recharging, domestic care, new management, urban contexts, living and sharing, and iconic identities.
The objective of the curators has been to expose the new trends of the new habitability that are being developed in collective housing in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century, to generate a debate that allows us to reflect and continue evolving, with a society that assumes new roles, new functions, and new situations.
The five Spanish buildings selected are Life Reusing Posidonia (Formentera) by Alfonso Reina Ferragut, Antonio Martín Procopio, Carles Oliver Barceló and Xim Moyá Costa; Fabra i Coats (Barcelona) by Roldán + Berengué; Torre Juliá (Barcelona) by Pau Vidal, Sergi Pons and Ricard Galiana; Complejo de Viviendas en Caramoniña (Santiago de Compostela) by Víctor López Cotelo and Juan Manuel Vargas; and Cooperativa de viviendas La Borda (Barcelona) by Lacol SCCL.
Taller de torpederos by Vandkunsten Architects. Photograph by Anne Mette Manelius.
Kalkbreite by Müller Sigrist Architekten. Photograph by Martin Stollenwerk Zürich Switzerland.
Description of project by Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas and José María de Lapuerta.
The Museo ICO presents Amaneceres domésticos. Themes of Collective Housing in 21st Century Europe, an exhibition that presents, based on built works, the main themes that are shaping European collective housing in the 21st century. Curated by Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas, and José María de Lapuerta, it will be on view from 5 October 2022 to 15 January 2023.
Through a series of concepts, exemplified by built projects, this exhibition proposes a place for reflection and debate on the present and future of the spaces we inhabit.
Housing is one of the major concerns of our society. Although it is a fundamental right, access to it is increasingly difficult in the context of rising prices and economic instability that requires new management formulas in its production and use. On the other hand, the classic solutions developed by Modernity have proved obsolete in an extremely complex and changing world, incapable of meeting the demands for flexibility of users with increasingly varied and fluid social relations, with new needs, or with the need for new answers to old problems and who, more and more, are demanding their participation in the process of designing the private and community spaces in which they will spend an important part of their lives.
Added to this are environmental, economic, and aesthetic concerns, etc., which make housing a fruitful field of experimentation for architecture. The COVID pandemic has confirmed this obsolescence and the urgency of tackling all these problems from radically new perspectives.
Aware of this, Carmen Espegel, Andrés Cánovas, and José María de Lapuerta, within the Collective Housing Research Group (GIVCO) and with the collaboration of the Directorate General for Architecture, Housing and Land of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda (MITMA), carried out a thorough investigation in which they catalogued some 2,500 collective housing buildings constructed in Europe, which they subsequently synthesized into 54 cases in the book House tag: European Collective Housing 2000-2021. Now, together with the ICO Foundation and MITMA's Directorate General for the Urban Agenda and Architecture, they are making a new synthesis effort to present at the ICO Museum exhibition Amaneceres domésticos. Themes of collective housing in 21st-century Europe.
Domestic Sunrises. Collective housing issues in 21st century Europe. Photograph by Julio César González.
The exhibition presents 28 paradigmatic examples of housing built in ten European countries from 2000 to 2021, including five Spanish ones: Life Reusing Posidonia (Formentera) by Alfonso Reina Ferragut, Antonio Martín Procopio, Carles Oliver Barceló and Xim Moyá Costa; Fabra i Coats (Barcelona) by Roldán + Berengué; Torre Juliá (Barcelona) by Pau Vidal, Sergi Pons and Ricard Galiana; Complejo de Viviendas en Caramoniña (Santiago de Compostela) by Víctor López Cotelo and Juan Manuel Vargas; and Cooperativa de viviendas La Borda (Barcelona) by Lacol SCCL.
The buildings are organized around seven categories: Climate Awareness, Active Recharging, Domestic Care, New Management, Urban Contexts, Living and Sharing, and Iconic Identities, plus a COVID epilogue.
The aim is to show the fundamental concepts of the new habitability that are being developed in collective housing in Europe at the beginning of the 21st century, thus encouraging a debate that will enable further progress to be made in this direction. To this end, the involvement of professionals and administrations, but also society in general, is essential, hence the importance of this dissemination effort.
Amaneceres domésticos reproduces in the ICO Museum, on a scale of 1:1, seven interiors of the buildings selected by the curators. In these furnished rooms, through plans, photographs, and videos made by Tatiana Poggi and Joaquín García Vicente specifically for this exhibition - in which the users and architects of the buildings tell of their experiences - and other materials, the seven themes mentioned above are developed through the direct comparison of four projects.
