20 Catalan works will be exhibited in Switzerland

On 5th and 6th February, twenty Catalan studios will travel to Geneva (Switzerland), representing a broad cross section of the social housing models that have been built in Barcelona over the last ten years. Twenty selected works will be exhibited in the Geneva Pavillon SICLI under the title _Export BARCELONA ‘Social Housing in Urban Context’ until 22nd of the same month, thanks to the collaboration between the Cities Connection Project and the Maison de l’Architecture.

CATALOGUE EDITION
The event _Export BARCELONA ‘Social Housing in Urban Context’ includes the publication of a catalogue, published by dpr-barcelona, with information about the twenty selected works, incorporating Augmented Reality and contextualizing the selected projects in a historical timeline of reference works. The catalogue is also intended to be the most up to date compendium of recent and prominent Catalan social architecture.The catalogue includes texts by Ferran Mascarell, Conseller de Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Antonio Hodgers, Conseiller d’État de Genève, Vicente Guallart, chief architect of the Barcelona City Council and Xavier Bustos and Nicola Regusci, the project curators.

EXHIBITION AND INAUGURAL CONFERENCE
The exhibition will start on February 5th with an inaugural conference presented by Vicente Guallart, Chief Architect of the City of Barcelona, and will be attended by Antonio Hodgers, Conseiller d’État de Genève, and Francesco Della Casa, Architecte cantonal, representing Swiss institutions, and by Jordi Sellas,Director General for Creation and Cultural Industries. The event on 5th and 6th February will also include interviews, discussion meetings between professionals and institutions from Barcelona and Switzerland, with visits to emblematic buildings of Geneva’s collective housing history. The exhibition will run until 22nd March at the Geneva Pavillon SICLI (Route des Acacias, 45).

CITIES CONNECTION PROJECT
The event _Export BARCELONA ‘Social Housing in Urban Context’ is part of the Cities Connection Project, which regularly connects outstanding architecture from two European regions via a “back and forth” event that on this occasion has selected Geneva and Barcelona. The first phase of the exchange, _Import GENEVA ‘Building Geneva: projects versus challenges’, took place in Barcelona from 13th to 24th November 2014 at the Arts Santa Mònica Centre de la Creativitat. The Cities Connection Project (CCP) aspires to annually connect European architecture that is committed to the current social reality, while breaking away from mass media.

NEXT EDITIONS
For future editions, the Cities Connection Project will link cities like Marseille, Zurich, Berlin and Brussels. The aim of the Cities Connection Project is for each event to be the catalyst for an ongoing dialogue between architects from the selected cities.