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A Spanish Vision on the Hudson: Ricardo Bofill: The Modern Classicist as Architect
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13224 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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10 / 1987 |
2,525 Words |
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Hugh Aldersey-Williams
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The political renewal sweeping Spain ever since the death of Franco in 1975 has been matched by a cultural renewal. Both developments have been enthusiastically welcomed by other countries. Spain's newfound democracy immediately won the approbation of the rest of Europe when it joined the Economic Community. Spain's new cultural vitality has been crowned with international prominence, thanks both to its new generation of creative individuals and a number of timely exhibitions. They represent a restoration of Spain to the ranks of prime contributor to world culture rather than the entrance of a new player on the international artistic scene.
The country's creative hub is undoubtedly the region of Catalonia, which, along with some other Spanish regions, has won greater autonomy through recent political reforms. Its capital is Barcelona, which now ranks with Milan and Paris in art, fashion, design, and architecture.
Barcelona has long been a major city. A busy port and commercial center as well as a creative hothouse, it could be said that, like Milan, Rome, New York, or Washington, Barcelona creates the country's wealth while the bureaucrats in Madrid spend it.
This is one reason Barcelona has such a ready affinity with New York, notwithstanding New York's sister-city link with Madrid. Lately New York has been paying lavish and overdue homage to Catalonia. The Barcelona Art Nouveau architect Antonio Gaudi and his lesser-known but still influential contemporaries Luis Domenech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadalfach were recently celebrated at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Then there was a major retrospective of the work of Joan Miro at the Museum of Modern Art. Miro, more than his local contemporaries Dali and Picasso, represents the Catalonian spirit in art.
Artistic Projects
These exhibitions are reminders of what Barcelona was before the Spanish Civil War. Artistic projects in today's Barcelona evince a more participatory homage in New York. A recent exhibition at the Spanish Institute in New York showed the Catalonian city's plans for public art in some of its many beautiful plazas. Collaborations between local architects and American artists will yield some powerful artworks and will coincidentally reinforce the Spanish tradition of the unity of art and architecture. The cooperative nature of the plaza program will promote a resonance between the art and the architecture that will render these sculptures more relevant than most of the orphaned and windswept offerings placed at the feet of America's skyscrapers. Among the artists enrolled are Richard Serra, Ellsworth Kelly, Beverly Pepper, and Roy Lichtenstein. The most dramatic contribution may be a giant matchbook complete with a flaming match, a jokey liberty torch, from Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.
The ultimate connection will be forged in 1992, the five hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus' setting sail from Spain for America. The occasion will be commemorated by a World's Fair in Seville and the Olympic Games in Barcelona. A roster of local and international architects, including Arata Isozaki and Richard Meier, have been commissioned to design a seaside Olympic village.
Shaping the New Barcelona
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