Foros

Foros is part of the academic teaching programme at the School. It is a subject that involves debating and reflecting on current architecture and consists of a series of lectures that are open to the public. The main objective of the subject is to exchange knowledge, approaches and different views between students and lecturers, and it acts as a tool to understand and perceive the discipline of architecture, as well as a platform for events relating to theory and criticism of the work of architects.

Through open lectures given by nationally and internationally renowned guest lecturers, our Foros series aims to provoke questions and discussions on topical issues as well as reflect and debate matters of vital importance to architects.

With support from:

The 2018 edition of Foros featured the following speakers:

Manuel Delgado Ruiz: Full professor of Anthropology at the University of Barcelona (UB). Undergraduate degree in Art History and PhD in Anthropology from the same university. Postgraduate degree in Social Psychology from the Faculty of Medicine at the UB. Postgraduate studies in the Department of Religious Sciences in the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne in Paris. Since 1986, he has been a professor of Religious and Urban Anthropology in the Department of Social Anthropology at the UB. Coordinator of the Social Exclusion and Control Research Group (GRECS) and member of the Anthropology of Urban Conflict Observatory (OACU). Daniele Giglioli: Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Bergamo. His publications include Tema (La Nuova Italia, 2001); Il pedagogo e il libertino (Bergamo University Press, 2002); All’ordine del giorno è il terrore (Bompiani, 2007); Senza trauma (Quodlibet, 2011); Critica della vittima (Nottetempo, 2014); and Stato di minorità (Laterza, 2015). He is a contributor to the newspapers Corriere della Sera and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Elisa Valero Ramos: Full professor of Architectural Projects at the Granada School of Architecture. Recently named winner of the Swiss Architectural Award (2017-2018). She directs the research group RNM909 Efficient Housing and Urban Recycling and is the principal investigator in no less than four different research projects. In addition to the award above, she has won numerous architecture awards in competitions and for built work.

Addenda Architects: This Barcelona-based firm (Roberto González, Anne Hinz, Cecilia Rodríguez, Arnau Sastre and José Zabala) is the company behind the new Bauhaus Museum Dessau in Germany, which will be home to the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s collection. It is due to open in 2019, the centenary year of this iconic German institution. The firm was launched in 2015 and, for the past three years, has worked on the KULeuven Ghent Technology Campus, the Historical Museum in Frankfurt and the most recent edition of the Chicago Architecture Biennial, among others. Aside from the construction of the Bauhaus Dessau Museum, and prior to the creation of the company, the team members at Addenda Architects had an outstanding track record at national and international competitions. Louise Lemoine (Bêka&Lemoine): Video-artists, producers and publishers, Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine have been working together for the past 10 years, focusing their research primarily on experimenting with new narrative and cinematographic forms in relation to contemporary architecture and urban environment. With interests lying mainly in how the built environment shapes and influences our daily lives, they have developed a highly unique and personal approach which can be defined, in reference to French writer Georges Perec, as an anthropology of the ordinary. Presented by The New York Times as “cult figures in European architecture”, Bêka & Lemoine’s work has been widely acclaimed as “a new form of criticism” (Mark) which “has deeply changed the way of looking at architecture” (Domus). Nicolas Moreau + Hiroko Kusunoki: Established in Paris in 2011, Moreau Kusunoki Architects inserted itself discreetly into the roster of young architects in France. The duo behind the practice —Hiroko Kusunoki, from Japan, and Nicolas Moreau, from France— express their cultural duality in all the projects they produce, having gained invaluable experience in Japan by working with architects such as SANAA, Shigeru Ban and Kengo Kuma. In the belief that architecture is best conceived in reserve and introspection, the firm instils poetic visions in each of its projects, and a sensitive approach to the use of different scales in its design methodology. They particularly value the growth of architecture stemming from the infinitesimal scale of materiality and haptic technology to the urban scale. Josep Lluís Mateo: Undergraduate Degree in Architecture from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB). PhD (with honours) from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). He has presented and led courses at some of the world’s top academic and professional institutions. Full professor of Architecture and Design at ETH Zurich. Member of the Ordre des Architectes de Paris, the Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA) in Zurich and the Association of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) in Barcelona. His firm, Mateo Arquitectura, is globally active and seeks to connect intelligence and artistic ambition with pragmatism and objectivity. He has won numerous prizes, and has published and exhibited around the world.