21/03/2017
‘Camera and Model’ at Madrid’s ICO Museum
Antonio López painting the model for the Andalusian Village in Río Real (Marbella), 1982. Architects: Félix Candela y Fernando Higueras
© Lola Botia
Emilio López Piñero demonstrating his fully folding dome in 1963
© Desconocido
Frontón Recoletos / Ball Court, 1932. Secundino Zuazo and Eduardo Torroja
© Luis Lladó
Structure of a proposed Contemporary Art Museum and Exhibition Centre, Madrid, 1952. Ramón Vázquez Molezún
© Desconocido
Experimental housing estate El Zofío, Madrid, 1956. Miguel Fisac
© Joaquín del Palacio (Kindel)
Club de Táchira, Caracas (Venezuela), 1956. Eduardo Torroja and José Fructoso Vivas
© García Moya
Draft project submitted to international competition for the Monument to José Batlle y Ordoñez in Montivideo. Roberto Puig Álvarez, Jorge Oteiza
© Juan Pando Barrero (Pando)
Seat Plant, Barcelona, 1961. César Ortiz-Echagüe and Rafael Echaide
© Maspons-Ubiña
Project submitted to international competition for a multipurpose building in Montecarlo, 1969. Fernando Higueras, Eulalia Marques, Antonio Miró, José Serrano-Suñer y Ricardo Urgoiti
© Fernando Higueras
Exhibition catalogue. Pages 8 and 9
Exhibition catalogue. Pages 20 and 21
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Eduardo Prieto
Photography played a key role in the creation and dissemination of the iconography, and also the ideology, of modern architecture. This role of photography has much been an object of study outside Spain, producing numerous books that examine the careers and languages of the 20th century’s great masters of architectural photography, from Julius Schulman to Balthazar Korab through Lucien Hervé or Ezra Stoller, analyze the role of photography in forming the imagery of modern aesthetics, and throw light on the importance of photographs in spreading the new language among the public at large through mass media, including erotic magazines.
In Spain, drawing attention to architectural photography (which, as occurs in architecture’s incursion in almost all fields, has been later in coming and has had to start practically from scratch) has in large part been the work of Iñaki Bergera and his research group FAME, which is devoted to the laborious task of digging into archives of all sorts, many of them scattered and difficultly accesible, in order to bring out the work of theb photographers – Kindel, Pando, Català-Roca – to whom we owe our admiration for architects like Fernández del Amo, De la Sota, and Coderch, to name just three.
Bergera’s efforts have resulted in an excellent series of books and exhibitions, and the latest show is ‘Camera and Model: Photography of Architecture Models in Spain, 1925-1970,’ on view through 14 May at the ICO Museum in Madrid and accompanied by a voluminous and exquisitely illustrated catalog. Through a hundred images arranged in a labyrinthine scheme of Borgesian echoes and a stunning collection of period models, the exhibition takes stock of the relationship between two ways of depicting architecture, and, by extension, the fruitful relations that tend to be struck between architects and photographers. The overall focus is on the dates of birth, the comings of age, and the crises of Spanish modernity, from the period of building the discourse and image of modernity (the show pays attention to the GATEPAC and the ideological manipulation of photos and models in the magazine AC) to the decade of the organicist revision of modern paradigms (with special attention to Sáenz de Oíza and Higueras), passing through the years of formal exaltation of the modern project (featuring authors like De la Sota, Fisac, Coderch, and García de Paredes, but also less known figures of interest, such as Mitjans, Ribas i Piera, Perpiñá, Laorga, and many more). Overall, this is a rigorous and attractive exhibition which, under the guise of research into a seemingly modest theme, is able to give a history of modernity in Spain from a different angle, complementary to the usual and most fertile.
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AV Monographs
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analyzes in each issue a theme related to a city, a country, a tendency or an
architect, with articles by leading specialists complemented by commentary on works
and projects illustrated in detail. Published bilingually, with Spanish and English
texts placed side by side.
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Arquitectura Viva
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covers current topics, taking stock of recent trends in set sections: cover story,
works and projects, art and culture, books, technique and innovation. From 2013
on, monthly and bilingual, with Spanish and English texts printed side by side.
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AV Proyectos
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is the third member of the AV family: a bilingual publication essentially focussed
on design projects (with special attention on competitions and construction details),
heretofore only laterally dealt with in the other two magazines.
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