ARCHITECTURE AND TERRITORY
24 May 2013 – 6 June 2013
at COAC, Plaça Nova 5, Barcelona
OPENING
23 May 2013, 19.00h
at COAC
Presentation by Bonell / Della Torre / Polloni / Regusci
Opening lecture by Alberto Caruso (director of Archi Magazine)
Architecture and Territory
This first exhibition seeks to identify the key under-50 players from Ticino during the 2002-2012 decade. The theme chosen for this first confrontation with Barcelona is “Architecture in the Territory”. The Canton of Ticino is a mainly mountainous territory which nevertheless has many other geographical conformations such as hills and plains, valleys and lakes. More than half of the territory of the canton is uninhabited.
The majority of the population lives in the center-south area between Sopraceneri
(Magadino, Locarno and Bellinzona) and Sottoceneri (Lugano, Mendrisio and Chiasso). This particular geography, together with the gradual population increase and the presence of the prevalent type of single-family houses, as well as the difficulty of finding accommodation within the larger centers, has generated a gradual growth of urban expansion known as “urban sprawl”.
From Chiasso to Bellinzona – the capital – via Lugano – the main economic center – we find a single continuous low-density urban agglomeration. The backbone of this diffuse city seems to be the highway that runs through the canton from north to south, connecting Italy and the South of the Alps with the rest of Switzerland and Northern Europe. The Barcelona_Import Ticino exhibition seeks to locate a series of works from this territory that together represent a snapshot of the quality of Ticino architecture from the last decade. The better to represent this relationship between architecture and territory – starting from the south and moving up the canton to the valleys of the far north – we have chosen a series of combinations between works and geographical context:
• architecture in lowland areas
• architecture in the urban context
• architecture in the vicinity of lakes
• architecture in hilly areas
• architecture in mountain áreas
The main focus of this exhibition is on residential settlements and public buildings and schools in urban and suburban areas as well as in less populated areas.
