On 7 April, the director of the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, Josep Lluis i Ginovart, and assistant lecturer and member of the Architectural Heritage Research Group Mónica López Piquer took part in the fifth edition of the prestigious Annual Conference on Construction History, which took place from 6-8 April in Queens' College, University of Cambridge. 

Both delivered a lecture entitled “Trace Methods of the Romanesque Churches of Val D'Aran (11th-13th centuries). Orientations”, in which researcher Mónica López Piquer explained to the audience some of the lines of research covered in her thesis on Romanesque heritage in Val d’Aran, “Topologia dera Arquitectura Romanica dera Val d’Aran” [Topology of Romanesque Architecture in Val d’Aran], which she is currently completing under the supervision of Josep Lluis i Ginovart. The topological study performed as part of this project, which takes as a basis 24 churches in Val d’Aran, allowed the researcher to test various hypotheses, including the theory that, between the 11th and 13th centuries, the clergy and inhabitants of Val d’Aran aligned the buildings based on their knowledge of astronomy. 

The Annual Conference on Construction History is an event organised by the Construction History Society, an entity within the University of Cambridge that is devoted to the promotion and study of the history of construction. The institution has members hailing from all parts of the world and its purpose is to identify and protect sources of information and archives related to construction history. According to Josep Lluis i Ginovart, “For the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture it is an honour to be invited by the Construction History Society to this special edition on the Romanesque period. This invitation is credit to the efforts and hard work of our research team”.