Award-winning architects to unveil new project at Venice Biennale

RCR Arquitectes, winners of prestigious Pritzker Architecture prize, to shed light on their creative mindset

Group behind Catalan pavilion at Venice Biennale 2018 (by ACN)
Group behind Catalan pavilion at Venice Biennale 2018 (by ACN) / ACN

ACN | Barcelona

May 3, 2018 02:14 PM

RCR Arquitectes, winners of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture prize last year, are to reveal at the upcoming Venice Biennale a project that will shed light on the minds behind the Catalan company’s architectural visions.

‘RCR. Dream and Nature’ will be unveiled at the Catalan pavilion of the 16th edition of the Biennale, which takes place from May 26 to November 25.

The  project features co-curators Pati Núñez and Estel Ortega, alongside RCR Arquitectes, and will represent the most intimate universe of Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta, the creative minds at RCR.

The exhibition “has an explicit desire to build the experience of a dream” and is “based on giving shape to what RCR has worked on at the construction of La Vila de Bianya in Girona, according to architect Ortega.

Home and abroad

RCR Arquitectes’ works can be found throughout Catalonia — especially in Olot where the firm was founded and is based. They designed an athletics track for the town, as well as an open-air restaurant. In Barcelona, they turned an ancient candy factory into the Joan Oliver library.

In the years to come, they aim to continue working both in Catalonia and abroad. They are currently looking at projects in China, the U.S. and in the Catalan town of Vic, close to their office in Olot.

They are not planning to go big after winning the award: theirs' is a small office, and it will stay as it is. What they do appreciate, though, is the possibility of being able to pick those projects that they are really interested in, as it takes them nearly five years to complete each work.