Bayonese art déco master Joseph Hiriart is the protagonist of an exhibition in Bilbao

2021 November 9

• The exhibition, organised by the Higher Technical School of Architecture of the UPV/EHU, brings together outstanding works by the architect by means of 24 panels installed outside the Institut Français
  
• They include well-known buildings such as the Museé de la Mer in Biarritz and unbuilt projects such as the one submitted to the competition for the Sagrado Corazón in Bilbao.
• This afternoon, architect Fermín Vázquez will be in conversation at the Guggenheim Museum with architect and EITB collaborator Andoni Pombo.

The Mugak/ International Architecture Biennial of the Basque Country today presented the first of the four exhibitions that will open this week in Bilbao. It is 'Joseph Hiriart, master of Art Deco', organised by the Higher Technical School of Architecture (ETSA) of the UPV/EHU. Made up of 24 panels and a model, it will be installed outside the Institut Français until 23 November.

This exhibition is based on the works of the Bayonne architect Joseph Hiriart (1888-1946), a master of the Art Deco style. It focuses on those built in the Basque Country and the French Basque Country as well as in Tunisia, where he worked between 1929 and 1936. 

The model is a representation of Villa Leihorra (Ciboure/Ziburu, 1925). The panels, available in Basque, Spanish and French, narrate his life experience and his career. They show and contextualise his first villas, built between 1925 and 1926, including Lehen Tokia, Itzala and the aforementioned Villa Leihorra. There are also works such as the Musée de la Mer, in Biarritz, the seminary of San Francisco Javier, in Uztaritze, and the project he submitted to the competition for the monument to the Sacred Heart in Bilbao. 

However, the main contribution of this exhibition is the incorporation of his Tunisian works into Hiriart's oeuvre: "In this way, his work acquires new nuances: these are large-scale projects, as they are residential blocks, with a strong urban presence, as they are located on the main avenues of the city of Tunis, and also carried out in a colonial context", explained the curator of the exhibition, Lauren Etxepare. This afternoon, at 5 p.m., Etxepare will give a guided tour of the panels.

The Guggenheim joins Mugak/

The first presentation of the Biennial will also take place today in Bilbao. It will be at the Guggenheim Museum, as part of its TopARTE programme, where the architect Fermín Vázquez will be in conversation with Andoni Pombo, architect and EITB collaborator. Vázquez founded the b720 studio Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos with Ana Bassat in 1997 and, since then, has never deliberately created his own style. He approaches each commission by studying the project specifically, with the client and the specific society as the main reference point. It will take place at 18:00h, with free admission until full capacity is reached.