Paisajes de barrio – El toldo verde & Gehiengoaren hiria

In “Paisajes de Barrio” we will discuss how collective housing is a fundamental element in the transformation of the landscapes of the neighborhoods of the cities with people who, with their projects and practice, have reflected on this phenomenon: authors of “Toldo Verde: Postales de otro patrimonio” Pablo Arboleda & Kike Carvajal and authors of Gehiengoaren hiria Jonander Agirre and Ander Gortazar.

We will address how in collective housing neighborhoods the inhabitants have a leading role in the transformation of the landscape, since their daily actions can generate an identity that is part of the urban landscape in which we live.

In addition, we will reflect on and highlight the value of this neighborhood landscape that is not usually the subject of postcards and yet is a fundamental sign of identity of the cities.

 

 

About Toldo Verde: Postales de otro patrimonio/ Pablo Arboleda & Kike Carvajal

In the context of Franco’s developmentalism, an enormous number of houses were erected in the outskirts of the main cities of our country. Dense urban fabrics, buildings as homogeneous as anodyne, an identifying landscape of a Spain that, undergoing changes, reaches our days. The architect-researcher Pablo Arboleda presents this imperfect reality in a patrimonial key, where the term “heritage” is stripped of idealism to become a mirror that invites society to recognize itself as it is. At the same time, photographer Kike Carbajal documents a Madrid that could be many other cities and from whose entrails emerges a common imaginary that elevates strangely familiar images to the category of “postcard”. The conjunction of both authors results in a rich exercise of introspection on the paradoxes that enclose our cities, always swinging between vindication and questioning. A leisurely and strolling observation of what, for being close, we have never looked at. A present past whose narrative is in need of gestures that contribute to build a broader, honest and inclusive image of Spain.

 

Pablo Arboleda  (1985) is a researcher at the Institute of Language, Literature and Anthropology of the Spanish National Research Council (ILLA-CSIC). An architect by training, he has studied and worked in several universities in Spain, France, Canada, Germany and Scotland, where his interdisciplinary profile has been strengthened by his interest in heritage studies, urban studies, geography and cultural anthropology, and the visual arts. His main line of research deals with the so-called “modern ruins”, abandoned spaces in contexts of deindustrialization and crisis, where a convulsive past converges with a kind of aesthetic fascination in the present. Author of some thirty scientific publications that draw on photography, video, comics and poetry, his work represents a firm commitment to creativity as a strategy for communicating with audiences beyond the academy. In this wake, Toldo verde is his first book and his first explicit incursion into the urban periphery understood as a cultural and patrimonial reality.

 

Kike Carbajal(1976) is a photographer based in Madrid whose work has ranged from major publishing houses, national press, magazines, corporate communications and advertising. His passion for the documentary genre and visual anthropology has led him to carry out a multitude of projects for foundations in Europe and Africa, collaborate in audiovisual initiatives and exhibitions, and investigate a wide range of topics ranging from the most mundane to the most devastating. His gaze has captured the persecution of albinos in Mozambique, the living conditions of both the Baka pygmies in the jungle of Cameroon and the Saharawis in the refugee camps, the vital evolution of the employees of a “dotcom” company, the disappearance of small businesses, and even the wild parties with animals in our country. Somos la calle (Popurrit, 2017) was his first book, an exploration in the key of street photography about the inhabitants of the capital; Toldo verde is the same, but in reverse.

 

 

Gehiengoaren hiria / Jonander Agirre & Ander Gortazar

Gehiengoaren hiria is a reflection on the architecture of the bay of Pasaia. The bay of Pasaia, like many of the urban areas developed during the Spanish developmentalism, is described as ugly. The book makes an x-ray of the buildings of Pasaia and puts in check the concept of ugliness, making a reflection on nostalgia. This work is in its essence a tribute to an architecture that has never been valued.

Jonander Agirre Miquelez (Donostia, 1988) is the author of ‘Gehiengoaren hiria’ together with Ander Gortázar and an architect by the Escola Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB) and the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolanen in Stockholm. He develops his practice since 2010 and most of his work is done in collaboration with architects, artists, designers, institutions, media or citizen movements. She is currently working on different projects in Donostia from AZPI Kultur Elkartea.

 

Ander Gortazar Balerdi (Donostia, 1985), author of ‘Gehiengoaren hiria’ together with Jonander Aguirre Miquelez, is an architect by the University of the Basque Country and the Institut d’arquitectura avançada de Catalunya, and is specialized in urban planning, territorial planning and mobility. He is co-founder of the firm RAZ together with Jacek Markusiewicz, and associate professor of urban planning at the School of Architecture of the University of the Basque Country. He is writing a thesis on multimodal mobility at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.