Hyperreal landscapes

Curated by SO – IL, the exhibition at CCA explores the role of collage not only as a form of representation but as a means of production in the work of Ábalos & Herreros.

Ábalos & Herreros, Photomontage showing the inclusion of the architectural character of the double tower. #84 – Parque Dunar, Doñana (1993 – 94). Collage of electrostatic prints with marker and graphite. Ábalos & Herreros fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. Gift of Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros © Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros

The exhibition that explores the meaning of borders in architecture

At the Magazzino delle Idee in Trieste, images by Roberto Conte and Miran Kambič trace a century of cross-border architecture through visual diptychs that reveal connections, divergences and memories shared.

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The Canadian Centre for Architecture presents “Landscapes of the Hyperreal: Ábalos & Herreros selected by SO – IL”, the last of three exhibitions in a series entitled “Out of the Box: Ábalos & Herreros”.

Conceived as an innovative, ongoing investigation of an architectural archive, the three exhibitions explore the legacy of the Spanish architecture firm Ábalos & Herreros through the research and interpretations of different guest curators.

**Top**: Ábalos & Herreros, Photomontage showing the inclusion of the architectural character of the double tower. #84 – Parque Dunar, Doñana (1993 – 94). Collage of electrostatic prints with marker and graphite. Ábalos & Herreros fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. Gift of Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros © Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros. **Above**: Ábalos & Herreros, Photograph showing the inclusion of the architectural character of the environmental structure. #99 – Planta de reciclaje de Valdemingómez (1996 – 99). Digital photograph. Ábalos & Herreros fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. Gift of Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros © Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros

“Landscapes of the Hyperreal” explores the role of collage not only as a form of representation but as a means of production in the work of Ábalos & Herreros. Working in the 1980s during a period shaped at the end of the Franco regime, Ábalos & Herreros focused their attention on peripheral landscapes rather than developed urban areas, redefining the sites with new programmatic interests. These sites included waste and recycling centres, sports and recreation sites, harbours, highways and airports. Ábalos & Herreros appropriated and transformed references from a wide variety of architectural and visual art sources to create representations of a new type of built landscape.

According to curators Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu (SO – IL), “Ábalos & Herreros generated a number of architectural characters: the shed, the double tower, the environmental structure, the machinic device and the pattern. They introduced these characters again and again in various proposals to populate, animate and activate new contexts, from the derelict industrial harbour of Bilbao to the undeveloped rural area of Valdemingómez.” Through their collages and realized projects, Ábalos & Herreros aimed at creating hyperreal landscapes, a hybrid situation of natural and artificial elements.

Ábalos & Herreros, Design development drawing showing the inclusion of the architectural character of the machinic device. #59 – Vivienda y Ciudad, Diagonal Barcelona (1988 – 89) Ink-jet print on paper. Ábalos & Herreros fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montréal. Gift of Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros © Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros

The exhibition presents a selection of six landscape projects through three principal kinds of documents: site panoramas, photomontages and experimental graphic works. Masterplans illustrating the final designs are also included. The exhibition features projections of reference documents that were important to the work of Ábalos & Herreros and that illustrate five typologies used in their landscape projects. All documents in the exhibition are part of the physical and digital archives of the Ábalos & Herreros fonds at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

A carpet covers the floor of the exhibition, as an installation on which transparent vitrines display the selected archival material. This carpet, a work inspired by German artist Gerhard Richter’s 1025 Farben carpet used in the design of an exhibition by Ábalos & Herreros for the Third Biennial of Spanish Architecture and Urbanism (Madrid, 1996–97), is here reinterpreted by SO – IL in a new colour scheme.

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Ábalos & Herreros, Site plan showing the inclusion of the architectural character of the pattern.

Ábalos & Herreros, Photomontage.

Ábalos & Herreros, Site panorama.

Ábalos & Herreros, Rendering showing the inclusion of the architectural character of the shed.

until 13 September 2015
Landscapes of the Hyperreal
Ábalos & Herreros selected by SO – IL
curated by SO – IL
graphic design Jonathan Hares
Canadian Centre for Architecture
1920 Rue Baile, Montreal

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