Since 28 October 2008 to January 5, 2009

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia

Extension 0

Magazine AC GATEPAC stars in a group exhibition at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. A magazine designed and produced by GATEPAC (Group of Spanish Architects and Technicians for the Progress of Contemporary Architecture) between 1931 and 1937.

A group of architects who believed in what they did. Six years of intense work, designing projects that could change the world but was not enough time and reality collided with the idealism of those real proposals.

The exhibition is organized by sections but the elements are mixed as they had thought and planned in its day. About 900 pieces show what this group of Spanish architects and technicians worked on a moment in the history of the twentieth century whose time ran faster than they had hoped lagging behind many of their projects and dreams. Creates the interwar avant-garde Spanish where the complicity between power and culture was essential to project the contemporary city.

The statement by Manuel Borja-Villel and the four commissioners of the sample, Enrique Granell, Josep Maria Rovira, José Ángel Sanz y Antonio Pizza Nano, coordinated by Veronica Castillo, will remain open until Jan. 5 in the building Extension 0.

AC is one of the most reliable documents to measure the tone of the cultural achievements of the Spanish avant-garde between the wars, hence the relevance of this exhibition. Its pages reflect the symptoms of European and global modernity and its echo in the young Spanish architects of the time, engaged in disseminating new ideas and forms Plastics in the Spain of his time, the Second Republic.

The exhibition is a unique opportunity to see first-hand materials, which give a measure of the importance of the magazine at a time in which art and architecture intended to be at the forefront of politics. Along with their own magazines, clippings and original photographs history, show historical documents, sketches, lithographs, collages, photomontages advertising, architectural projects, furniture, films and artists related to the magazine, as Fernand Léger, Julio Gonzalez, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí and Picasso.

The GATEPAC Zaragoza was founded in October 1930 and in its constituent meeting states the purpose of publishing a magazine to disseminate their ideas, their commitments and affinities, which exceeded the limits of architecture. With three groups GATEPAC in Barcelona, Madrid and San Sebastian, the publication of a journal was as common bond, a body of their concerns and interests. The art, interior design, photography, cinema, city, graphic design and CIAM (International Congresses of Modern Architecture "), among others, are the topics that appear in its pages over the 25 issues published between 1931 and 1937.

The members of GATEPAC took pains to look after international relations and led to the pages of the magazine AC the works of great architects related to his ideas, Breuer, Neutra, Mies van der Rohe, Moser and Haesler. The publication enjoyed great international prestige and acceptance in their time: the meeting in Barcelona CIRPAC ( "Comité International pour la Résolution des Problèmes de l'Architecture Contemporaine") in March 1932 was the European accolade of group work. Giedion, Le Corbusier, Gropius, Bourgeois, Van Eesteren and others, sealed a covenant implicit in Barcelona for the Spanish vanguard rightfully be recognized in the pages of the history of twentieth-century modern architecture.

The exhibition is organized around several themes: "Precursors", "Masters", "Modern Living", "International Architecture", "Picasso," whose first solo exhibition in Spain was organized by members of ADLAN and early GATEPAC 1936 - "Mediterranean", "ADLAN", "Joan Miro", "functional city", "Schools and hospitals" and "Technique and standardized construction.

At the beginning of the exposure, the sections "Precursors" and "Masters" show, first, the influence of the great figures of modern architecture (Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mendelsohn and Van Doesburg) in GATEPAC architects. The contacts came in different ways, including visits to the masters of modern architecture in Spain, made at times to lecture in Madrid and Barcelona travel or training of the Spanish in their work, who even in some cases, worked in their studies. Thus, the exhibition reflects the roots that provided the initial stimulus to our architects.

Furthermore, it places the viewer in the beginning of the modernization efforts of the Spanish architecture, a task in which pioneered Fernando Garcia Mercadal. He arranged visits to the Spanish capital of modern architecture masters as Le Corbusier, Mendelsohn, Van Doesburg and Gropius, and began publishing in the journal "Architecture" the first works of modern Spanish architecture, both our own, as Joseph Josep Lluis Sert and Torres Clave, José Manuel Aizpurua and Joaquin Labayen, or Luis Vallejo. He was also Garcia Mercadal who attended the first CIAM in 1928, an example which was followed in the immediate post-CIAM by Sert and Torres. This first room also presents material related to the first exhibitions of the future members of GATEPAC and their initial trip to Europe.

"Modern Living" shows the importance reflected in the magazine, which acquires a new vision of architecture that arose as a result of new lifestyles and made concrete in pure forms and historicist elements away from academic compositions. From 1931, projects of houses, cinemas, swimming pools, indoor and furniture design and exhibition stands become a research field in which for the architects of GATEPAC. It is "another way of life" where they show great interest. This is reflected in the pages of AC with the work of artists like Hans Arp, Ángel Ferrant, Alexander Calder, Baumeister, etc.. that help to look "modern" to his proposals to recall and reveal the aesthetic that is defended.

AC magazine became a necessary reference in the dissemination of what was later called Modern Movement historiography. The section of the exhibition "International Architecture" shows the interest of most modern architects (Breuer, Neutra, Mies van der Rohe, Moser, Lubetkin, Haesler, Lurçat, Rietveld, Luigi Fugini, Pollini, Alvar Aalto, etc.). to bring his work to the pages of the magazine. For example, the number 1 appeared with a spectacular home in which he outlined a foreshortened picture of the Van Nelle Factory, a paradigm of international modern architecture.

The first monographic exhibition of Picasso in Spain was organized by members of ADLAN and GATEPAC and you saw in Barcelona, Bilbao and Madrid in 1936 to great public success. Luis Fernandez was the painter who took care of the selection of works in Paris, assisted by Christian Zervos and Picasso himself, who gave the recent work. This section includes pieces that were hung in the exhibition catalog published for samples of Madrid and Barcelona and related correspondence.

"Mediterranean" is a quest for roots of their own which can be seen from the first issue of BC It was intended therefore to prove that another origin of the modern-Mediterranean architecture, white-cube and unadorned possible. Modern architecture in serious difficulties with German National Socialism, the Soviet Union and Italian Fascism. The Spanish are left alone with Le Corbusier, an outsider in France. It is time to reclaim the indigenous. Ibiza will be a mythical place for them. A selection of popular furniture or issues devoted to Mediterranean architecture and folk art are shown as examples of a tradition that began to be explored from another point of view.

ADLAN ( "Friends of l'Art Nou) is a group of artists and poets open to all art forms which is based in Barcelona in 1932 under the initiative of Joan Prats and never have been born without the prior existence of GATEPAC. During the five years remaining in active, working in parallel ADLAN GATEPAC, holding exhibitions and publishing documents, including the magazine D'Aci id'Allà. Your contacts, partnerships were common affinities and therefore ADLAN met at the local GATEPAC in Barcelona and Jose Lluis Sert was a founder common between both groups. The number of D'Aci id'Allà published in December 1934 as a joint contribution of Sert and Joan Prats. In addition, both groups shared the objective of Barcelona society showing new European trends and thus, members of GATEPAC ADLAN and organized, among others, Picasso's first solo exhibition in Spain. In short, both are indispensable for understanding the penetration of the historical vanguards in our country. However, differed on some points, as the sector of the population they were headed or maintained with GATEPAC controversy by supporting ADLAN Dali. Other groups ADLAN were created in different cities, especially Madrid highlighting, establishing Ángel Ferrant from Barcelona and Tenerife, where they publish the magazine Gaceta de Arte.

The artist closest to and ADLAN GATEPAC was Joan Miró. A personal friend of Josep Lluis Sert and Joan Prats, was always present in AC magazine by publishing his work in its pages, and for his intellectual contribution to improving the state of modern plastic culture. For example, the last page of the magazine number 25 gives the reproduction of his famous gouache of a peasant with beret who raises his arm with a closed fist with the text "Aidez l'Espagne.

"The city functional" a term coined by Sigfried Giedion, corresponds to the interests of CIAM architects in the early 30s. It emerges from the analysis that identifies gaps in every city and urban space management from strict zoning of their activities: housing, jobs, industry, transport and leisure. Los del GATEPAC soon began to make proposals to the left amazed to European criticism: the project of the Diagonal in Barcelona, the Plan Macias, Repòs i Ciutat de Vacances, Playa del Jarama in Madrid or the project to renovate Barcelona's Eixample blocks are examples. Part of this "city functional" is public architecture (schools, hospitals and housing workers) that depended on the programs that the Republic wanted to develop with more determination than the chances but taking good note of the GATEPAC. Bloc House is an example of how to deal with housing in the fabled "city functional".

The new requirements of modern times require construction systems and building industry organizations that meet social service programs. The exhibition also deals with building schools and hospitals, with samples of the most representative buildings such as the central TB clinic in Barcelona.

Germany pioneered the technique and standardized construction, the design of built-in types, self-built and portable, which were intended to reduce costs and time in building houses. So, modern Spanish took note of this new architecture right away.
Catalog

On the occasion of this exhibition is accompanied by a catalog that combines key articles in the historiography of modern architecture in our country, some of which were published in AC, with unpublished articles. Among the authors of the texts 'historical' may be found to Salvador Dalí, Ángel Ferrant, Fernand Léger or Paul Eluard. Among the authors of the unpublished contents of the catalog, include the four curators of this show, Enrique Granell, Josep Maria Rovira, José Ángel Sanz y Antonio Pizza Nano, plus numerous scholars and critics of architecture and art, as National JMuseo Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.

Interesting facts:
DATES: October 28, 2008 - January 5, 2009
WHERE: National Museum Reina Sofia Art Center. Extension 0

ORGANIZATION: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia
COMMISSIONERS: Enrique Granell, Josep Maria Rovira, José Ángel Sanz y Antonio Pizza Nano
CONTACTS: Veronica Castillo