Lógica Natural

Vicente Guallart

Published by IVAM, 2008

Vicente Guallart makes mountains out of glass and rocks out of wood. He transforms meandering coastlines into public spaces and apartment towers into communes. He is an architect who uses the latest technology to open up unexpected spaces in the landscape we thought we knew. He creates new forms that are rooted in the most ancient and basic realities.

This exhibition highlights the ways in which this Valencia-born architect is making new geographies. We are used to thinking of an architect as somebody who makes buildings. Guallart instead sees our cities, our agricultural fields, and our industrial areas, as well as the rocks and trees and other natural elements we humans have inherited, as the building blocks for a new reality he wishes to design. His method is to use sophisticated computer technology to analyze both human and natural geographies, as well as the internal structures of either society or nature, in order to discern their most important properties. He then uses those same computers, but also his highly refined design sensibility, to redraw these structures in such a way that we can use them with more efficiency and pleasure. Along the way, he believes he will open up the possibility of new social relations within these artificial landscapes as well.

Encompassing the design of private houses, apartment buildings, public spaces and urban plans in Catalonia, Valencia, and Taiwan, Guallart’s practice is a varied one. The models, drawings and animations for these projects are here displayed on top of Valencia’s Roman wall, emphasizing that this thoroughly modern architecture is no more and no less than a tracing and opening up of the ancient structures in and on which we live.