On-Site: New Architecture in Spain, MoMA, New York, 2006

Recently, artist Lara Almarcegui pointed out that "one does not garden to generate the Great Lettuce but for the pleasure of the activity itself." Promoting and taking charge of a garden is an activity that can challenge the notions of productive hypertrophy and spectacularization implicit in the concept of 'Big Lettuce', to shift the debates towards practices whose purpose is to build and expand affective and political bonds. It is curious to see how the understanding of architecture produced in Spain during the last two decades has been marked by this image of the 'Great Lettuce'. A simplistic portrait largely sponsored by the more general media and channeled through several strands that have tried to connect with each other. On the one hand, the interventions...[+]