The Foundation of Enric Miralles, with the support of Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat of Catalonia, is promoting a tribute to Enric Miralles, whose death marked 20 years in 2020.

Exhibitions and activities will show throughout 2021 his many facets as a creator: architect, designer, photographer and teacher, bringing his professional and human figure to the general public.

The curators of the tribute, Benedetta Tagliabue and Joan Roig i Duran, have selected for the exhibitions, original and unpublished materials from the archives of the Fundació Enric Miralles.

MIRALLES is a program of exhibitions and activities that shows the public the legacy that the architect left, with works in Barcelona -a city where he lived and worked, Catalonia and worldwide. The tribute addresses his different facets as a creator: architect, designer, photographer and teacher, offering a multifaceted and personal look at his career.

Image © Maro Kouri

The activities of MIRALLES are curated by Benedetta Tagliabue (Miralles Tagliabue EMBT) and Joan Roig i Duran (Batlle i Roig), and organized by Fundació Enric Miralles with the support of the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat of Catalonia through their Departments of Presidency, Culture and Territory and Sustainability, in collaboration with the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB), the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC) and the Miralles Tagliabue EMBT architecture studio.

Enric Miralles. Image © Maro Kouri

This tribute "not only wants to remember the human and professional figure of Enric Miralles, but also wants to keep the spirit of the visionary, of the experimentalist, alive, as a way of working and seeing the world. And to leave his legacy also for the future generations," said Benedetta Tagliabue.

The program extends to representative spaces of the city of Barcelona, starting with the Saló del Tinell, which is home to the exhibition about Miralles as architect, and also was chosen to host in 1956 the first retrospective of another illustrious architect of the city, Antoni Gaudí. 

The other venues for the activities, which are also emblematic, will be at the Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Disseny Hub of Barcelona City Council, the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC), the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) and the Fundació Enric Miralles.

Santa Monica 3B. Image © Fundació Enric Miralles

Through these spaces a "Miralles circuit" has been designed that can be visited at various times of the year and that is accessible to all audiences. 

Thanks to the different formats: talks, debates, photography, videos, plans, drawings, models, notebooks, sketches, collages ... anyone, whether or not linked to the world of architecture, can get closer to the human figure life of one of the most international contemporary Catalan architects.

Santa Monica. Image © Fundació Enric Miralles

Croquis feria ARCO 1996. Courtesy of Fundació Enric Miralles

Miralles has an exceptionally prolific career: in just 26 years of profession, from 1974 to 2000, he received 62 awards, participated in 68 competitions and was a finalist in many others. In addition, he has carried out installations and executed different projects. Among all these aspects, a total of 225 works and projects are collected in different countries such as Holland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Scotland, Japan, Austria, Argentina, United States, Brazil, Greece, Finland, France, USA, England, Ireland, Switzerland, and Denmark.

Expo Shangai 2010 Pavilion, photos by Shen Zhonghai

He taught in Barcelona, Frankfurt, and at the most prestigious universities in the United States such as Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, and Yale. He is the most studied and imitated architect by students in the western and eastern world. The foundation that treasures his legacy receives more than 2,000 visits from all over the world each year. The tribute prioritizes the documentation and materials that Miralles made in his lifetime, some of them unpublished, which will come out of the archive for the first time.

Kàlida Sant Pau. Image © Lluc Miralles

But MIRALLES is also an act of affirmation of the heritage it has left in the history of architecture and in the academic world, extending its gaze to the imprint that the EMBT studio has been able to follow.

Curator Joan Roig i Duran explains that "a meticulous research effort has been made within the archives to find those documents and materials that can best explain Miralles to the general public. It is not a tribute made from a distance; it has been thought from the front line to make it accessible to everyone."

Ferrara 2021 CHIESA SAN GIACOMO by Paolo Fassoli

Agenda - Short description of events "MIRALLES"

MIRALLES. A quarts de quatre…
From 15.04.21 to 04.07.2021
Saló del Tinell. Plaça del Rei, 10 Barcelona
Entry fee: 3 € (general fee MUHBA)

Exhibition co-curated by Benedetta Tagliabue and Joan Roig that shows his work as an architect focused on four of his most representative works: the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, the Igualada Cemetery, the Santa Caterina Market in Barcelona, and the Sports Pavillion in Huesca. Original and unpublished material will be exhibited: models, plans, photographs and videos. The entire creative process of Miralles that will show to the general public, from the first approaches to the construction.

MIRALLES. Photos & Collages
From 15.04.21 to 30.06.21
Centre d’Arts Santa Mònica. La Rambla, 7 Barcelona
Free entry

This exhibition shows part of the photographic documentation of the life and work of Enric Miralles. Photographs taken by himself that cover both his personal and professional life. Directly from the private archive of Enric Miralles, his emblematic photographic collages will be shown for the first time. This exhibition is coordinated by Salvador Gilabert, professor and project manager at Miralles Tagliabue EMBT architecture studio.

MIRALLES. To be continued…
From 15.04.21 to 23.12.21
Fundació Enric Miralles. Passatge de la Pau, 10 bis Barcelona
Free entry

The Fundació Enric Miralles has, among its objectives, the preservation of the architect's works, ideas, and creative spirit for the benefit of future generations. ‘MIRALLES. To be continued…’ covers the legacy that Miralles left in his studio and how it has marked the trajectory of Miralles Tagliabue EMBT throughout these 20 years. Models at different scales and referring to various phases of creation, sketches, photographs, correspondences, collages and projections are the protagonists of this exhibition project that will feature reflections by Martha Thorne.

Image © Arturo Mc Clean

MIRALLES. Perpetuum Mobile
From 27.05.21 to 29.08.21
Disseny Hub. Plaça de les Glòries, 37 Barcelona
Entry fee: 3 € (buy at Disseny HUB)

Exhibition of Enric Miralles as a designer. Furniture and objects that he designed along his life for his own use will be shown together for the first time. 'Inestable', 'Dolmen', 'Troncos' and 'Tropical' tables, the 'Lelukaappi' shelving inspired by the work of the architect Alvar Aalto and several chairs and unpublished lamps. The exhibition, curated by Benedetta Tagliabue and Joan Roig, and organized with the support of American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) with wood donated by AE Maderas, is completed with unpublished plans, drawings, and sketches of the design process of these pieces.

MIRALLES. Converses
03.06 – 10.06 – 17.06.2021
COAC. Plaça Nova, 5 Barcelona
Free entry

The Barcelona College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC) joins the tribute to Miralles with a cycle of three talks with international guests. Architects, academics, and artists will share their experiences with Enric Miralles and will talk about his career and influence. Meetings between Rafael Moneo andBenedetta Tagliabue, Liz Diller and Beatriz Colomina; and Soraya Smithson and Carme Pinós.

Image © Fundació Enric Miralles

MIRALLES. A l’escola
From 22.09.2021 to 24.11.2021
ETSAB.  Av. Diagonal, 649-651 Barcelona
Free entry

His work as a teacher was a very important facet in the life of Enric Miralles, who worked as a professor at various universities. The exhibition ‘MIRALLES. A l’escola’, curated by Carme Ribas and Ton Salvadó, focuses on the activity of the ETSAB, where he trained and to which he dedicated most of his teaching activity.

Top image courtesy of Foundation of Enric Miralles

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