Hay Forum Sevilla 2024

Artist and architect Coro López-Izquierdo will give a guided tour of the exhibition Invisible Architecture at the Valentín de Madariaga Foundation. The exhibition invites us to ask ourselves what is the current aesthetic thought through the eyes of eight Spanish artists of great prestige and eight key pieces, unpublished. Visitors will be able to elaborate their own conception of current aesthetics. Dimensional architecture, lyrical architecture, architecture of identity, ethereal architecture, uninhabited architecture, seasonal architecture, architecture of essence and light architecture are the eight installations through which the spectator will make a pilgrimage, each of them offering different views, both sculptural and pictorial, in which color and shapes will surprise as protagonists. Invisible Architecture pays homage to Seville through works never previously exhibited and created expressly for the occasion.

López-Izquierdo is an artist, architect and professor of Architectural Drawing at the ETSEM of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. She has exhibited both nationally (Madrid, Segovia, Bilbao, Cadiz, Gijon) and internationally (Paris, Barbizon, London, Italy and Dominican Republic). She has participated in the art fairs Art Madrid, Estampa, Artesantander, Art Chicago, Art Miami, Art London and KIAF. She was selected as an artist to study in the 2020 course Feminism and Contemporary Art held at the Museo Nacional de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid.

Event in Spanish. Welcome at 17:50.

The French architect and urban planner Odile Decq is internationally recognized as a teacher, entrepreneur and advocate for women in the profession. She will speak on global design, in this conversation in collaboration with the Seville School of Architecture (ETSA-Seville). She will present museums in Italy and China, a residential tower in Barcelona and two single-family houses in France. Through these seemingly diverse projects, it will become evident how this architect approaches place, client needs and cultural, political, legal and construction contexts that are often different and difficult.

Her multidisciplinary approach was recognized with the Jane Drew Award in 2016, and she was honored with the Architizer Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 for her pioneering work, but also for her commitment and contribution to the architectural debate. In 2018, she was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, in recognition of her outstanding contributions in building science, design and education, and of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland. A professor of architecture for over 25 years, Odile Decq was director of l'École Spéciale d'Architecture (ESA) in Paris from 2007 to 2012, and has taught and lectured at numerous international universities, including Bartlett (London), Kunstakademie (Vienna and Düsseldorf), SCI-Arc (Los Angeles, CA), Columbia University (New York, NY) and, most recently, the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, MA). In 2014 he created his own school, now located in Paris: the Confluence Institute for Innovation and Creative Strategies in Architecture, accredited by the Royal Institute of British Architects.

She will discuss her career with Martha Thorne, urban planner and former executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, and architect Ramón Pico, Director of the Seville School of Architecture.

Event in English

Building with intelligence... human and artificial. This is the challenge facing architecture today and will be discussed by architect and engineer Carlo Ratti. He teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Politecnico di Milano. He is a founding partner of the architecture and innovation firm CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab. A prolific writer, speaker, academic, and entrepreneur, he shares his innovative ideas through many formats. His experience as an international exhibition director spans many countries, from Germany to China and from Italy to Portugal. He is currently the director of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2025). He graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris and later did his master's and doctoral work at Cambridge University, UK, completing his doctoral thesis as a Fulbright scholar at MIT.

Ratti will talk about the connections between human, artificial, and collective intelligence for our built environment. After presenting some examples of the different types of intelligence he uses to create his architectural projects, he will talk with Javier Moreno (renowned journalist and former editor of El País) and Martha Thorne (urban planner and former executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize) about intelligences for improving the built environment.

Event in English with simultaneous interpretation into spanish

The positive transformation of cities has developed over time thanks to culture and, more recently, to renaturalization projects. The aim is to improve the quality of life of citizens, but also to deal efficiently with the ever-increasing climatic emergencies. And in this transformation framework, water plays an essential role. As was the case with the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition in Seville, which led to the development of its sewerage system and water network under the cover of a cultural event. Almost 100 years later, answers are still being sought to make cities environmentally sustainable spaces, to solve supply and sanitation deficiencies and to include a cultural story that explains the past and argues for the future.

Ángel Cárdenas, manager of Urban Development, Water and Creative Economies at the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), will speak at the event. In this unit, he leads a portfolio of more than $8 billion in urban operations focused on the sectors of mobility, water and sanitation, citizen security and creative economies. And Ricard Frigola, economist, associate professor of Economics and Regulation of Public Services at the University of Barcelona and between 2010-2019 was professor of Urban Management at the School of Architecture and Design at IE University. He was financial director of the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Organizing Committee (COOB'92), and is currently director of Institutional Relations at Agbar.

The event will be moderated by Miquel Molina, deputy director of La Vanguardia and writer. He is the author of two novels and several essays; the last one, Cinco horas en Venecia. Award for non-sexist journalism.

Event in Spanish. Welcome at 18:50h.

Xu Tiantian is an internationally recognized architect and the founder of DnA Design and Architecture. She has been extensively involved in the process of rural revitalization in China. Her innovative “Architectural Acupuncture” is a holistic approach to heritage and the social and economic revitalization of rural China. UN-Habitat has selected this work as the 'Inspiring Practice' case study on urban-rural linkages. Its social design approach is aimed at maximizing benefits for both the location and its people. The traditional building culture in rural areas differs significantly from that of urban areas. By integrating communities with their environment and considering the cultural and economic context, architecture becomes a fundamental tool for improving agrarian village life.

Born in Fujian China, she received her Bachelor of Architecture degree from Tsinghua University in Beijing and her Master of Architecture degree in Urban Design from Harvard University - GSD. She has received numerous awards, including the WA China Architecture Award in 2006 and 2008, the Emerging Architects Award from the Architectural League of New York in 2008, the Design Vanguard Award in 2009 from Architecture Record, the Moira Gemmill Award for Emerging Women Architects in 2019, and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture in 2023, among others. In 2020, she was named an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.

Tiantian will discuss his work with Martha Thorne, urban planner and senior advisor to the international cutting-edge award for people and planet, the OBEL Award; she was executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The event will be presented by Nuria Canivell, dean of the Official College of Architects of Seville.