The city of Barcelona is the guest of honour at the International Architecture Biennial in Buenos Aires, held from 9 to 20 October at the Usina del Arte in the Argentine capital. The Biennial has been held since 1985 and has become one of the most important events of the region, a pioneer in biennials in Latin America and recognised as one of the great trio, together with Venice and São Paulo.

Within that framework, Buenos Aires becomes a space for cultural exchanges,  lectures by world-renowned architects and exhibitions that place architecture in the foreground of the debate.

On the occasion of the presence of Barcelona as guest of honour at the International Architecture Biennial in Buenos Aires, Barcelona Council and the Institut Ramon Llull have organized a programme of lectures and an exhibition, which includes an academic programme. They will take place at the Usina del Arte. As well as that official representation, Barcelona is present at other cultural venues in the city through a busy programme of performing arts and workshops.

During the inaugural lectures by the Catalan participants on Tuesday, the councillor for Architecture, Landscape and Heritage, Daniel Mòdol, claimed that the city “wishes to go more deeply into the value of urban architecture for the citizens, and how it is living and being lived in Barcelona… We would like to recall that urban architecture makes the city, identity and heritage”. He also remarked that “maintaining and promoting collective awareness of the quality of the spaces where public life takes place will enable us to discover the urban identities of each one and decide, amongst other things, how to make them evolve”.

In his turn, the councillor for Housing, Josep Maria Montaner, gave his intervention around housing and public space. He spoke of the redistributive social and town planning model being developed in Barcelona, based on the drive towards a green city where the neighbourhoods and the dwellings are being renewed. “We are moving towards a new paradigm of housing policies in Barcelona to promote proactive energy rehabilitation”, he said.

The guiding thread of the exhibition and the lectures given by the Catalan capital in Buenos Aires, as well as the academic programme that will accompany those actions, is “Barcelona, architectures of a city”, in harmony with the project Barcelona Architecture, City Heritage, which is being implemented by the council to highlight its architecture and heritage. The Catalan participants present a concept of heritage that goes beyond historical protection and whose aim is to highlight the undoubted value which architecture, the public space and the urban landscape have for society. In that way the council wants to make its goals in this sphere known, from the points of view of both preservation and knowledge and of intervention and the new actions.