Vicente Guallart Architect

Guallart works in the confluence of architecture, nature and new technologies. Some of his more relevant projects are the Denia Mountain

One of the most acclaimed architects at the exhibition this year is Vicente Guallart. Guallart has had his studio in Barcelona since 1992, the year of the Barcelona Olympics, although he was born in Valencia in 1963.

Guallart works in the confluence of architecture, nature and new technologies. Some of his more relevant projects are the Denia Mountain (reconstruction of an old quarry in an environment that has old Arab castle, selected for the Venice Biennale 2004), 3 projects including two harbours in the North of Taiwan that it is hoped will increase the influx of tourism on the island, and the Sharing Tower in the neighbourhood of La Torre (Valencia).

In this project urban transformation is guided by a commitment to ensuring the maximum protection for Valencia’s market garden, known locally as “la huerta” (one of the traditional agricultural zones surrounding the city of Valencia) irrigated with waters from the River Turia by way of ditches and channels originally dug by the Arabs some 800 years ago.

The new urban development reinforces the protection of the landscape and the environment while at the same time fulfilling a much-needed social function; making housing available at a controlled price to a great number of people.

The first phase of the complex is a hybrid programme that includes 250 rental apartments, an arts centre and a technology centre.

Guallart is also the author of the broader ‘Sociópolis’ project in Valencia, which is an innovative housing project that seeks to blend urban development with the protection of the original agriculture environment. He coordinates a group of international architects who will build different facilities and housing projects in this neighbourhood. The project promotes the construction of housing that responds to the needs of the new types of family unit (young people, the elderly, single-parent families, etc.), both owner-occupied and rented, in a quality urban setting in which the landscaped areas, social amenities and good architecture generate urban excellence.

Guallart is also co-author of the ‘Metapolis Dictionary of Advanced Architecture’ (Actar) and the Korean publishing house DD has dedicated the monograph “Intelligent Realities” to his work. The Actar publishing house is also preparing his new book “Media, Mountains and Architecture”.

He has given lectures in different Universities and Cities around the world such as Princeton University, UCLA, MIT, ICA (London), Space (Seoul), Taipei and others.

Among his other past, present and future projects are the Wroclaw Mountain Expo 2012, the Kim Hyng Yoon editing Co Headquarters, Paju Book City, Seoul, Korea (2001-2005) and the Museum of Fashion in Valencia, (2002-2005)

Behind his work is a clear philosophy. If Goethe believed that architecture was “frozen music”, Gullart believes that “architects cannot merely be passive problem-solvers; they have to accept a new active condition, like that of strategists who ask questions of their surroundings and anticipate lines of action, whose form of procedure is based not on the application of a profession that is learned and mutually consented, but on innovation in planning processes and the application of the new techniques and materials that they help to develop”.

He further claims that “the scale of an architectural project ranges ‘from bits to geography’. From the software that interacts with places and projects them beyond their physical reality, to the flows and synergies running through territory and organising local action of the construction of new inhabited landscapes; an interaction between the natural, the artificial and the digital that draws up new rules for ‘the art of dwelling’”.

He proposes the “hypothesis that the end purpose of architecture is not (solely) to build but also to define environments where human life can be organized.”



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