Valencian Institute for Modern Art presents Living in Architecture. A-cero. Joaquin Torres & Javier Llamazares, an exhibition on view Feb 10 – Jun 10, 2012.
Vivir en la arquitectura. A-cero: Joaquín Torres y Rafael Llamazares (Living in Architecture. A-cero: Joaquín Torres and Rafael Llamazares) is the title of a complete exhibition that the IVAM is showing, devoted to the work over the last fifteen years of the well-known architects’ studio based in La Finca, Pozuelo de Alarcón, with international offices in various cities of the world, including Dubai, Ho-Chi-Minh City, Beirut, Moscow, Bombay and Santiago de Chile.
Joaquín Torres and Rafael Llamazares founded A-cero Arquitectos in 1996 and since their early days in the city of A Coruña they have developed a wide-ranging creative programme of residential dwellings, especially in Madrid. The monumental features and avant-garde style of their detached houses have become recognisable in the La Finca housing development, and past customers include famous celebrities from the worlds of sport, entertainment and finance.
However, looking far beyond the great success achieved by A-cero and the impact that they have made in the media, their work links up with the great figures in contemporary architecture, ranging from Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe to Richard Neutra, and has clear influences from avant-garde sculpture. The homes that A-cero design are architecture with large volumes and empty spaces, clearly suggesting a connection with the sculptural work of artists such as Chillida, Oteiza or Richard Serra.
The exhibition Vivir en la arquitectura promoted by the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (IVAM) reviews all these aspects of the work of Torres and Llamazares in a retrospective show that concentrates on the presentation of a spectacular space simulating the interior of a home, complemented by numerous photographs, plans and models of the entire range of A-cero’s work, together with furniture that the studio has designed and a creative video produced for the occasion.
Vivir en la arquitectura also takes a look at A-cero’s proposals for various emblematic buildings and their latest contribution to the design and production of modular homes, one of the themes that has always aroused greatest interest in the Modern Movement. The daring designs that they have presented in competitions can also be seen in this exhibition, designs that have served as an experimental area for the evolution of A-cero’s construction methods and style.
Torres and Llamazares’s architecture, which has developed from an almost purist style towards curves and sinuous shapes, now occupies a position at the creative forefront of Spanish architecture. An important part in this development has been played by their work as designers of furniture and creators of extraordinary, striking, almost futuristic interiors. This has earned them the confidence of important companies such as the Porcelanosa group, which has engaged them to redesign the firm’s showroom in Villarreal. – www.ivam.es
