The Ramon Llull Institute, attached to the Department of Culture, will present the international version of the exhibition Sanity and rascality. Catalan architecture newsoriginally produced by Barcelona City Council through the Barcelona Design Hub (DHub), as part of Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture, in the Catalonia in Venice space, during the Venice Architecture Biennale 2027.
This historical and choral exhibition, which invites to review the established canon of modern and contemporary Catalan architecture, can be seen from May to November 2027 at the Venetian Docks Cantieri Cucchini, which has hosted the Catalan presence at the Venice Architecture Biennale uninterruptedly since 2012.
Coinciding with its 25th anniversary, the Ramon Llull Institute proposes a collective and plural exhibition, to continue projecting Catalan architecture internationally on one of the main global stages. On this occasion, the selection process to be part of the Eventi Collaterali of La Biennale will not open. Anna Guitart, director of the IRL, explains that “we want to carry out a reflection with the main agents of the sector to evaluate, together with the local ecosystem, the model of this participation in Venice, with the aim of relaunching the open process for the Biennale Architettura 2029“.
As in previous editions, the Institute will continue to encourage and support the participation of Catalan and Balearic architects in the international exhibition of the Architecture Biennale 2027 (May 8 to November 21), still pending selection by its artistic directors, the Chinese architects Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, who have chosen as their subject Do Architecture—For the Possibility of Coexistence Facing a Real Reality.
Currently, the exhibition Sanity and rascality can be visited at Design Hub Barcelona (DHub), until September 6. The proposal, curated and designed by the architects Carme Ribas, Victòria Garriga and Joan Roig, rescues hundreds of pieces from the warehouses and archives where they are often closed and, through them, invites the visitor to discover an arc of uninterrupted continuity from the foundation of the Barcelona School of Architecture in 1875 to the present day, beyond historical styles or eras. At a time when architecture is understood as a globalized fact, the exhibition asks if there are traits in Berenguer de Montagut or Pere Blai, master builders of Santa Maria del Mar and of the new facade of the Palau de la Generalitat respectively, that resonate in more recent projects by Domènech i Montaner, MBM or Harquitectes.
