gon-architects

back

PARÉNTESIS

Curatorship and design of a cycle of exhibitions on Madrid architectural practices

In the context of an economic crisis, as well as a political, institutional, social, and cultural crisis, the Paréntesis exhibition cycle, developed during the 2014-2015 academic year at the Oficial Chamber of Architects of Madrid, proposed a transversal and lively look at the architecture of the city and its architects, establishing common, everyday approaches.

For this, Paréntesis was placed in the Headquarters of the Oficial Chamber of Architects of Madrid as a strip of different spatiality and temporality, a physical interruption of the space that housed the different exhibitions inside it. It was executed as an automatic action, as an operation of covering the existing interior directly with the natural, untreated material. It was lined with the minimum intervention of other materials, directly gluing on adhesive tape, in some cases, constructing a slight reinforcement of agglomerate. The lining was made with the raw material: a natural, untreated cork was chosen.

The cork made it possible to create a differentiated place in terms of color, smell, acoustic and tactile properties, establishing a distinguished place for all the senses. In addition, the cork was a material that enabled the needs of a gallery: we could nail, hang anything, and remove it without damaging the surface.

Paréntesis consisted of four exhibitions: Our first work, And what do you do? Second prize and Who lives there? Collective events were held in these exhibitions, through a multiplicity of protagonists and use of formats that, such as the open call, functioned as critical tools that made possible the narration of collective diaries.