“Hors d’oeuvres” [outside of works]

On February 19, 1874, the Asociación de Arquitectos de Cataluña (1874-1936) was founded in Barcelona, the origin of the current Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya. From its legal recognition on March 28, 1874, the Association fought against the numerous violations concerning the “rights and dignity of the profession” in order to achieve and ensure “our duties and interests.” These were crisis-driven directives that seem to eerily mirror the contemporary condition in which architecture finds itself today.

With these coordinates in mind, “Hors d’oeuvres” [fora d’obres] not only adopts one of the most repeated headings in the celebratory menus for the annual gathering of the Association’s members — today, as it was 150 years ago — but also presents visitors with the mechanisms through which the discipline is organically formulated as an extension of life beyond the architect’s profession: travels, publications, participation in congresses, exhibition curation, and active involvement in debates around the spirit of modernity.

Perhaps we are facing the last leaders of the Renaixença (Catalan Renaissance) culture, but through their legacy, we see how being an architect also meant participating in this elegiac song that paved the way for Barcelona’s Groβstadt (Big City) and the future avant-gardes, until the War seemed to write its final chapter.