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MIES BARCELONA
FLOATING POINT
NAUMON, LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA
9, 10, 11 September 2004
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the construction of Mies
van der Rohe’s German Pavilion –widely known as the
'Barcelona Pavilion'– for the International Exhibition of
1929. The Fundació Mies van der Rohe, along with the member
institutions of its Board of Trustees, has planned a series of activities
to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Pavilion.
During the summer a series of cultural events are being held in
different Mediterranean cities with the aim of promoting values
such as peace, cohabitation, solidarity and sustainability, such
as the Olympic Games in Athens, the European Cultural Capital of
Genoa and the Forum Barcelona 2004.
As a contribution to these initiatives, the theatre group La Fura
dels Baus has offered its ship, the Naumon, as a meeting point for
the Fundació Mies van der Rohe at La Biennale di Venezia.
The Naumon will become the floating site for conferences, exhibitions,
workshops and shows. On its itinerary through different Mediterranean
ports such as Athens, Barcelona, Beirut, Istanbul, Marseilles and
Venice, the Naumon will be transformed into a laboratory where the
experiences of these cities may be analysed and compared. Above
all, the intention is to meet a common objective in each of these
cities: research on social housing and public space as two compatible
systems that may be conceived in a unitary way and used as a tool
for transformation in deteriorated urban settings.
During the second half of the 20th century, the majority of European
cities were subject to phenomena such as immigration and tourism
that have resulted in conditions of violent clashes. Moreover, in
many cities emergency situations such as wars and natural catastrophes
still generate the relentless destruction of their recognisable
urban fabrics, resulting in the sudden emergence of new opportunities
for construction. During this period, almost all cities were forced
to build new housing block developments on their outskirts that
disregard the ideas of the Modern Movement concerning typologies
and urbanism. The outcome is the rise of new ghettos characterised
by deficient connections with the historical city centre, a lack
of qualified public space, defective construction and a rigid, unimaginative
typological approach to public housing design.
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FUNDACIÓ MIES VAN DER ROHE
Board of Trustees:
Ajuntament de Barcelona
Ministerio de la Vivienda
Departament de Política Territorial i Obres Públiques
de la Generalitat de Catalunya
Fira de Barcelona
Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya
Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona
The Museum of Modern Art, Nova York
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin
Director:
Lluís Hortet
FLOATING POINT
Curator:
Josep Bohigas
Collaborators:
Laura Arenas
Iván Blasi
Adrià Maynés
Alejandro Raya
Graphic design:
Xeixa Rosa
Special thanks:
La Fura dels Baus, La Biennale di Venezia
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