Open Program 2014

The six conferences have been given by José Selgas & Lucía Cano, Antoni Blázquez, Josep Bohigas, Hisao Suzuki, Josep Maria Montaner and Bijoy Jain.

Recent work

José Selgas & Lucia Cano

SelgasCano was founded in 1998 in Madrid by José Selgas (Madrid, Spain, 1965) and Lucía Cano (Madrid, Spain, 1965), architects from the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM-UPM). They focus their work on research on the construction process, focused on the search for new possibilities for nature from the use of artificial means, applying technologies borrowed from other fields. They have exhibited at MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Venice Biennale, the GA Gallery and the MOT Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the Design Museum in London, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, the Sheds Gallery in Sydney and at MIT in Boston. In 2013 they received the Kunstpreis from the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and the Architects of the Year award from the German Design Council in Munich.

Building Structures in RCR

Antoni Blázquez

Antoni Blázquez (Badajoz, Spain, 1957) is an architect and Doctor of Architecture from the Barcelona Technical School. He is vice-president of the Board of the Association of Structural Consultants and professor of structures at the Higher Technical School of the University of Girona (UdG).In addition, he directs two master’s degrees in building structures (UPC and UdG). Author of several articles and presentations on seismic design and calculation of singular structures. Member of the Scientific Committee of ACE (Association of Structural Consultants) and ACHE (Scientific and Technical Association of Structural Concrete). BG Arquitectes structural consultants were founded in 1990 and have collaborated with RCR Arquitectes on numerous projects.

From the Bed to the Street

Josep Bohigas

Josep Bohigas Arnau (Barcelona, Spain, 1967) is an architect from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC), an associate professor of Projects and co-directs the Masters in Lighting at the UPC Foundation. He founded BOPBAA in 1990 with Francesc Pla and Iñaki Baquero to do architecture, urban planning, ephemeral assemblies, industrial design, cultural projects such as the expansion of the Thyssen Museum in Madrid and social housing. They have collaborated with the architecture studios Martorell-Bohigas-Mackay, EMBT, Gegants-Zenghelis, Ábalos & Herreros and Varis Arquitectes. They have received the FAD Awards (1998, 2000 and 2007) and the City of Barcelona Awards (2007 and 2014).

Light, Landscape and Architecture

Hisao Suzuki

Hisao Suzuki (Yamagata, Japan, 1957) graduated from the Tokyo School of Photography in 1979. Fascinated by the architecture of Antoni Gaudí, he arrived in Barcelona in 1982, where he settled. In 1986 he began to collaborate with the magazine El Croquis. He became its main photographer, contributing to the publication’s recognition as the means of disseminating contemporary architecture with the most prestige worldwide. His photographs have been published in almost all international architecture and design magazines and numerous books.

RCR and the Landscape: Ecotopes and Farmland, Diagrams and Atmospheres

Josep Maria Montaner

Josep Maria Montaner (Barcelona, Spain, 1954) holds a PhD in Architecture and teaches Architectural Composition at the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC). He co-directs with Zaida Muxí the 21st-century Housing Laboratory Master. He has taught courses and conferences in Europe, America and Asia. He is the author of more than thirty books, such as Después del Movimiento Moderno (After the Modern Movement, 1993); La modernidad superada (Modernity overcome, 1997); Arquitectura y crítica (Architecture and criticism, 1999); and Sistemas arquitectónicos contemporáneos (Contemporary architectural systems, 2008). Collaborator with the newspapers El País and La Vanguardia, he received the National Urbanism Award in the 2005 journalistic initiative of the Ministry of Housing and published in national and international magazines.

Recent Work

Bijoy Jain

Bijoy Jain (Mumbai, India, 1965) is an architect from the University of Washington in St. Louis, USA. He worked in Los Angeles and London between 1989 and 1995. He has taught in Copenhagen, Yale University and the Academia di Architettura di Mendrisio. Studio Mumbai was born in 1995 with Bijoy Jain’s return to India where he collaborates with craftsmen, technicians and draftsmen who design and build the work directly. The work has been shown at the 12th Venice Biennale and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London was a Finalist for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2010 and received the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture 2009, the Spirit of Nature Wood Award Architecture of Finland 2012 and the BSI Swiss Architecture Award 2012, among others.