SERT HALF A CENTURY OF ARCHITECTURE 1928 – 1979

The President of the Ibiza and Formentera Demarcation of the Official College of Architects of the Balearic Islands, Toni Marí Torres, and the Director of the Caixa Catalunya Foundation, Álex Susanna i Nadal, are pleased to invite you to the exposition:

SERT MIG SEGLE D`ARQUITECTURA 1928 – 1979
(SERT HALF A CENTURY OF ARCHITECTURE 1928 – 1979)
Comisaries: Jaume Freixa y Josep M. Rovira. Architects.

From 22nd June until 16th September 2007 at the headquarters of the Ibiza and
Formentera Demarcation of the Official College of Architects of the Balearic Islands
(Demarcació d`Eivissa i Formentera del Col-legi Oficial d´Arquitectes de les Illes Balears).

Opening times:
Monday and Tuesday, from 20 to 14 hrs.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 9 to 14 hrs. And from 20. to 22:00 hrs.
Saturday and Sunday from 20 to 22 hrs.

c/. Pere Tur, 3 – Dalt Vila, Ibiza.

 
JOSEP LLUÍS SERT: that man
  
0 VACIO


The headquarters of the Official College of Architects plays host to a retrospective of the Catalan master’s work.

The city of Cambridge (Massachusetts) contains Josep Lluís Sert’s most important architectural legacy.  However, Ibiza holds Sert’s biggest ruin: the “ciudad del ocio” in Cala d’en Serra, a concrete monstrosity which no one dares knock down and which serves as a great car park in summer months; thanks to this half completed building, there is shade in which to leave the car.

Sert, the first great student and defender of traditional Ibizan architecture, accepted to build in the idyllic Cala d’en Serra and, in the 30s, he suggested pulling down the ‘Raval’ in Barcelona because he considered it “an unhealthy tumour with no possible remedy”.  Josep Lluís Sert is Spain’s most important architect of the 20th Century, he introduced modern architecture to our country.  Misunderstood, a man of his times…and someone who, amongst many successes, also made his mistakes.

The exposition ‘Sert. Mig segle d’arquitectura. 1928-1979’ is magnificent because it explains to us, in an easy and didactic way, who Sert was, what he did and why he is so important.  The display combines rigour with entertainment and offers us personal documents, movies of the day, letters and plans of some of his most relevant works.  The explanations, that can be read on informative panels, are complemented with models to the delight of the youngest public.  I was like a kid myself before the scaled down versions of the ‘Fundación Marguerite’ and ‘Aimé Maeght’, the ‘Fundación Maeght’ or the ‘Peabody’ building and I imagined myself the size of Tom Thumb wandering and wondering at these impressive structures.

Sert has always seen the architect as a professional who is at the service of the society in which he or she settles.  Humans live in houses – forgive stating the obvious – and the homes we build are our universe, the way we blend into the landscape and transform it, the way we humanise it.

Thus, the importance of architecture which is ‘human’ and which takes into account the necessities of the times.  What would Sert say, Sert the defender of the traditional Ibizan house with their pure lines which was precursor to Bauhaus, if he took a walk around Cala de Bou?  Would he have a dizzy spell or, as he wanted to do with the ‘Raval’ in Barcelona, would he take a bulldozer to it and not leave a single stone standing?