IAAC Lecture Series – Mireia Luzárraga

Date: Wednesday, 22nd of March, 2023
Time: 19.30h (CET)
Title: Architecture and Co-Existance
Location: In-house at IAAC Main hall, C/ Pujades 102 & Zoom

 

> Watch the lecture on Youtube

Mireia Luzárraga is an architect (ETSAM) and Studio Critic at Columbia GSAPP. Luzárraga founded TAKK in 2010, an architecture and design studio based in Barcelona. Her projects investigate how architecture can catalyze the development of more democratic lives through the incorporation of feminist thought, ecology, and politics into its practice.

Their work has received recognition such as the COAM award, the “Temps de les Arts” award, and the FAD award.

Their work takes place in both the public and private spheres. TAKK’s clients include FRAC-Centre Val de Loire and IVAM (Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), Barcelona City Council, FAD (Foment de les Arts i el Disseny), Vitra, Swatch, Hermès, FITUR (Feria de Turismo), or CA2M (Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo).

Their reference art and design galleries for his furniture work are Side Gallery Barcelona and Camp Design Milan.

TAKK’s work belongs to the permanent collection of the FRAC-Centre Val de Loire and has been exhibited at the Oslo Triennale, and the Venice, San Sebastián, Tallinn, Maia, and Rabat Biennales, among others. Likewise, TAKK has participated in exhibitions at Matadero-Madrid, Center d’Arts Santa Mónica, CCCB (Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona), MAK Vienna, TCDC Bangkok, or Alcova Milano.

Mireia Luzárraga is currently a professor at the IAAC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, and La Salle, and together with Alejandro Muiño at Columbia GSAPP. Previously TAKK has participated as a professor and lecturer in institutions such as the University of Alicante, ETSAM, IED (Istituto Europeo di Design), ELISAVA, RMIT, Floating University Berlin, or ILEK Stuttgart.

TAKK’s projects have been published in some of the most important architecture magazines such as Arquitectura Viva, Plot, Domus, Abittare, l’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, and in publications such as El País, El Mundo, Diari Ara, or Architectural Digest.

Architecture and Co-Existance

It would seem that the laws of thermodynamics are in contradiction. While the first would advocate a world of infinite energy, the second reminds us that far from this energy utopia our resources are limited. If modernity; cumulative, extractive, predatory, capitalist in short, “grew” on the first law of thermodynamics, events such as climate change, the fossil fuel crisis, or the sixth mass extinction seem to indicate that the future is bound to “decrease” according to the second law looking for a balance that allows us to coexist on this planet.

But what does this turn, which some call degrowthist, mean for the arts and specifically for architecture? Are concepts such as the “new green deal” or green capitalism enough to carry out this transition or does the future require more profound changes? from our way of eating to what we understand by the word “home”? What (new) material, energetic, political and aesthetic models can we look for to face this turn?

Through examples developed by TAKK architecture, Mireia Luzárraga will try to answer these and other questions and we will see how the future (of architecture) is full of flowers and oysters.