June 2014, Venice Biennale Panel-Cabinet. ♦ Flores i Prats

hanging models explaining the new staircase and the facade to the medieval road

process drawings and at the rear the model with the roof structure

central part with axonometric view virgin and elliptical window

tv3 interviews us about palau balaguer and the panel-cabinet

explaining more about the panel while looking at the models

visitors filling up the catalan pavilion

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June 2014, Venice Biennale Panel-Cabinet.

From Cabinet to Biennale Panel. To collect and to present the material with which we do the things, valuing it without the transitive character of inspiration, that is always from or towards something, but to recognise its material character, of thing, identical at any moment of a process. The working material has character in itself, independent of any further use. A project is the addition of all these materials. So, a project can be explained by the materials that have been produced for its construction.

In our studio of Barcelona, a huge closet for clothing that was in the old house where we opened the studio, has been accumulating material of Casal Balaguer’s process during the 18 years we’ve been working on this project. We have been collecting and storing project versions in models, process drawings, photos of intermediate states of the work… Its huge size is related to the amount of material stored inside. This is not a simple wardrobe, but a container that holds all knowledge and thoughts that have been collected or learned over the years and should not be forgotten. This cabinet accumulates documents of different nature and formats: drawings, collages, sketches, models, letters, books… We moved the cupboard of our studio in Barcelona directly to Venice. All four doors were removed and cut to the total height of the panel we had as a base, and in Venice they were nailed directly to the panel; then we hung on them the models, pictures and drawings brought from Barcelona.

This cabinet is a time container, containing the time that we have been devoting to the project, which is visible through the material accumulated there. When its doors are opened and put into action, the sequence of appearance of the different documents matches the narration, being a scenographical help to explain the project. The closet is a good metaphor of the Casal Balaguer, a building which is also in a way a container of time. Having grown over the centuries, it has been able to contain successive lives and countless changes over time, absorbing and noting through traces and scars the different actions on it.