How Spain's Financial Crisis Influenced a Generation of Architecture and Design

This November, The Cooper Union is hosting the Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BEAU). The exhibition, Alternativas / Alternatives, highlights the use of innovative architectural techniques developed during Spain’s financial crisis.

Spanish design has never been defined by one architectural style, having had a long history of multicultural influences. The exhibition reflects this, proving that Spain has become a prominent international space for architectural innovation featuring installations constructed from local Spanish materials. Reinventing and resilient, contemporary Spanish design draws upon its prolific history to develop new designs with scarcity of means.

As Nader Tehrani, dean of The Cooper Union’s The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture tells The Creators Project, “The Iberian Peninsula, as a geographic entity, is linked to Europe and yet separated by the Pyrenees; historically its culture has been as much impacted by the mix of Muslim and Jewish influences as its Christian roots. This heterogeneity has made its design culture quite resilient to transformations of historical periods, absorbing them as much as adopting them for inventive hybrids.“

BEAU presents an overview of current urban production and architectural work via small scale and large-scale interventions. Alternativas/Alternatives features 3D printed models of 22 jury-selected projects, varying from schools, public parks, and residential homes—each project displays the use of substitute architectural processes developed over the last two years. Each model has a specific barcode, that when scanned, presents audiovisual commentary on the exhibition screens, introducing the advantages of each alternative design.

Featured is Recuperación del Caminito del Rey, designed by Luis Machuca Santa-Cruz, a reconstructed walkway, fastened along the vertiginous walls of a gorge in Málaga. Only recently restored, it had been closed for over a decade. Also exhibited is Wind House-La Casa de Los Vientos, designed by José Luis Muñoz Muñoz, a holiday home constructed with far less than the initial budget—without falling short on comfort and space. Andamio House, designed by bosch.capdeferro Arquitectures, presents a set of buildings transformed by lightweight constructions that provide solar protection, increase privacy, and support local plant life.The Factory of Electrical Assembly and the School of Architecture in Granada showcases how Spain's current generation of architects are imaginative in inventing alternative design solutions.

As co-director of the BEAU, Begoña Díaz-Urgorri tells The Creators Project, “We highlight the presence of a young generation of architects who stand out with interesting proposals, for which the crisis is not a problem but an incentive and encouragement to provide qualified responses that improve our places of life,” says Díaz-Urgorri.

To learn more about the Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism (BEAU) at Cooper Union, click here.

Related:

[Summer Break of the Future] The Desert Island Aqua-Mansion

A Street Art Skate Park Fills a Former Spanish Church

Insta of the Week: Art Simulates Financial Crisis