On Tuesday, 22 July 2014, the exhibition «Interactive Geographies» was unveiled in the Oval Room of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. The exhibition consists of 29 final degree projects by students at the ESARQ-UIC School of Architecture on the productive landscapes of the municipality of Montcada i Reixac. The opening ceremony included the roundtable session «Montcada Besòs: From Backyard to Front Line», which featured Joan Roig, Rosa Rull, Dani Módol and Miguel Roldán, along with workshop professors Juan Trias de Bes, Miquel Lacasta and Alberto Estévez. The session was attended by about a hundred people and was chaired by Enrique Pich Aguilera, the Director of Sustainability area at the ESARQ School of Architecture.
“Interactive Geographies” is the result of three workshops conducted with Moncada i Reixac town council over the course of the academic year to do research on, analyse and offer different viewpoints and solutions concerning the metropolitan area, thus giving it greater value and focus. The different workshops were conducted on a regional, urban and more detailed scale, and presented projects as diverse as a biogas and composting plant, a protofactory, wine cellars, a secondary venue of the wholesale cut flower market, a research centre on agriculture and livestock, a centre for flora and fauna recovery, an agricultural school, water management centres, a sheep farming school, etc.
This is the third time the final degree projects have been exhibited in iconic spaces around the city (the previous two editions were held at the Barcelona Centre of Contemporary Culture (CCCB) and the Museum of Design) and the ESARQ School of Architecture is once again drawing attention to the vital role that architecture schools play in debates concerning the city and the school's commitment to its immediate environment, as well as the dissemination of these results outside the academic community. Marta Bunyesch, the Director of Planning for Montcada i Reixac town council, gave a speech in which she stressed the importance of city architects and the relationship between universities and public administrations developed through projects such as these, which help administrations in search of planning solutions and give them a new impetus.
Those participating in the roundtable session and the guests in the front row of the audience praised the hard work that had gone into the exhibition and the teaching activity. Rosa Rull said, “The learning procedure undertaken during the workshops, which have been carried out on a regional, urban and more detailed level, as well as the research conducted into the location and the support provided by experts, is reflected in fantastic projects, and the students have learned a methodology that will prove very useful in their future careers as architects”.
In a similar vein, Miguel Roldán praised the way in which these students are concluding their studies with an exhibition in a setting as unique as the Oval Room of the Museum. He said, “It's a tribute to the students and architecture, and it is necessary and important to show non-architects that we are here and that we are working and doing research to provide solutions to our cities”.
