From July to December, the Gavà air-raid shelter will be hosting the exhibition “Models of 20th-century commemorative and funerary architecture”, jointly organised by the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture and the Gavà Museum and town council. UIC Barcelona lecturer Guillem Carabí and alumna Marta Faura are the curators of the show, which can be visited with a guided tour the first Sunday of every month. 

The exhibition consists of a series of models, made by UIC Barcelona School of Architecture students, of commemorative and funerary monuments designed by masters of 20th century architecture, such as Adolf Loos, Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Aldo Rossi, Carlo Scarpa or Alvar Aalto. “The exercise given to students sought to relate the history of 20th-century architecture in Catalonia to the architecture being developed, in parallel, in Europe. The political times in Catalonia – and in Spain in general – were different from those of Europe. Discovering the existence of relationships between architects from Catalonia and European architects sheds light, in turn, on the evolution of our local architecture”, Carabí explained. “That would allow us to learn from the problems of the past in order to improve the future. Architecture offers insight into the different ideas and styles of the times it reflects, through the authors’ approaches and ways of doing things”, added Faura. 

The show includes the projects done for the subject “Composition 4” in the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years. For two semesters, the students studied, researched and reconstructed models of some of the monuments planned and built in Europe over the 20th century, mainly to commemorate the fallen in World Wars I and II. 

The exhibition will open its doors on 3 July, in an inaugural event that is scheduled to take place at 7 p.m. and will be attended by UIC Barcelona rector Xavier Gil, the director of UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Josep Lluis i Ginovart, Gavà mayor Raquel Sánchez Jiménez, and the director of the Gavà Museum, Josep Bosch.