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Mugak/ opens its “Schools Week” today, with the participation of around 600 students from 7 schools of architecture and “Boundaries” as its main discus

  • The “Schools Week” gathers students from Toledo, A Coruña, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Karlsruhe and Wroclaw, who will have their lectures in the Old Town of San Sebastian.
  • Students from the Universities of Toledo and the Basque Country UPV/EHU will install a hundred ladders used by migrants to climb over the fence in Melilla.
  • Espacio Reflex will organise activities about the cross-border phenomenon: a sculptural intervention, lectures, a short film festival and a media library with over a hundred titles about “boundaries”.

Today, the International Architecture Biennial Mugak/ (Boundaries, in Basque language) opens its central week, also known as the “Architecture Schools Week”. Five intense days, during which the Basque Country will become the epicentre of Architecture, having San Sebastián as a main seat. Along the week, students will deal with topics related to boundaries and fill up the San Sebastian Old Town with their lectures and activities.

Around 600 people coming from seven universities – students from the Architecture Schools of Toledo and A Coruña, as well as from Bordeaux and Montpellier in France, Karlsruhe in Germany and Wroclaw in Poland, apart from the University of the Basque Country – and with 28 nationalities will throw themselves into the activities organised in the “Mugak/ hiria” (the Mugak/ city, in Basque language), an area around the axis between the Basque Country Architecture Institute (EAI-IAE) and the Zuloaga square.

An exhibition stands out among the works prepared by the students of the School of Architecture of the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU. It is called “Solar K” and shows the projects that preceded the construction of the Kursaal Palace in San Sebastian. It will take place precisely in the iconic building that was constructed by Rafael Moneo now 20 years ago and open its doors on Wednesday. Besides, other students will do drawing exercises around the Old Town.

From the 22nd to the 25th, the Habic Cluster proposes a Hackathon with the challenge of re-designing a chair according to the parameters of digitalisation, the “maker” movement and contemporary design. In this framework, Carlos Lalastra will give the lecture “Un culo. Un problema. Mil soluciones’” [One Butt. One Problem. A Thousand Solutions] (on the 23rd of October at 11.30 in the IAE).

Between the 23rd and the 25th of October, students will also participate in the workshop of bionic architecture with one of its pioneers, Javier Pioz. It will approach the geometrical patterns of living structures and how to use them in Architecture.

Other workshops will build installations around the Basque Country Architecture Institute (IAE). The Bastion’s Lookout will host several installations by different Schools of Architecture. The teacher in charge of the carpentry workshop of the Toledo School of Architecture, Javier Vellés, will also visit San Sebastián and portrait the city along with six of his students. They will be found at La Concha beach between the 23rd and the 25th of October.

On the 25th of October, Baskegur, the Professional Association of Basque-Navarre Architects COAVN and the Bilbao Exhibition Centre BEC, will organise a double guided visit in Sestao: to the integral restoration of 47 dwellings and to the district heating - with biomass for 250 dwellings. This activity is part of the four days of guided visits to eight referential buildings of architecture in wood in the Basque Country. It is a selection of the works submitted to the Egurtek Awards of Architecture in Wood in their different editions.

As a first step to promote spaces on the Urgull hill, one of the boundaries of the city with the sea, students will use the Bastion’s Lookout as a working space, which will also be an exhibition space open to the general public. Moreover, the future possibilities of the hill will be analysed. Projects will develop in the Guardetxe lodge or in the Gastronómica cooking society. The Trinidad square will be one of its focal points.

A discussion on boundaries and migration

On Wednesday, the architecture students of the Universities of Toledo and the Basque Country will bring artist Fernando Clavería’s installation “A 100 service ladders” to the Basque Country. Together, they will install a hundred ladders used by migrants to climb over the fences in Melilla on the façade of the San Telmo Museum in San Sebastian. The ladders are built with tree branches tied with rope, jute, etc. and symbolise “the dramatic flight in search of a world where they can live”.

Boundaries, migration and cross-border phenomena will be among the main discussion topics of the week, thanks to the activities organised by Espacio Reflex. Juan Aizpitarte is the author of the installation “Islas Hub” [Hub Islands] (a reference to the smallest inhabited border island of the world, between USA and Canada). The installation will be built in the Trinidad square and offer an new point of view, “a link between the square and the body, as a wink to the architect of the square, Luis Peña Ganchegui, and his way of transitioning from nature to the city”, as Aizpitarte explained.

For the second time in Mugak/, Espacio Reflex will organise its Cross-Border Media Library, Tuesday to Friday inside the library of the San Telmo Museum. It will offer a hundred books and twenty films focused on the idea of boundaries from multiple perspectives, thus fostering a reflection on the notions of identity and territory.

In the framework of this debate, Espacio Reflex and Esteban Zamora, owner of the bookshop Kaxilda, will organise the Cross-Border Dialogues in the IAE. The programme will include: writer Eduardo Romero – on the 23th of October at 17:00h. with the lecture “El estallido migratorio” [The Migration Boom] –, the Chilean Philosophy professor Claudio Ibarra – on the 24th of October at 18:00h with the lecture “Fronteras interiores y exteriores, el gobierno de las periferias en Latinoamérica” [Internal and External Borders, the Government of Peripheries in Latin America] –, and activist Ainhoa Douhaibi – on the 25th of October at 18:00h, with the lecture “Para un diagrama de las fronteras interiores en las ciudad neoliberal: islamofobia y securitización” [For a Diagram of Internal Borders in the Neoliberal City: Islamophobia and Securitization].

The documentary and short film festival Dokufest will also deal with cross-border issues from the audio-visual perspective. It will focus on Kosovo, a country whose history is full of difficulties in the construction of borders. Dokufest films will travel 2,500 kilometres to be screened in the Basque Country, in the Basque Country Architecture Institute on the 23rd, 24th and 25th of October at 21h.

Finally, as any good festival of culture, art and architecture, the second edition of the Biennial will also host a party-concert to close the “Schools week”. It will take place in Dabadaba on the 24th of October beginning at 20:00h., with the performance of the German ska group The Busters, Kokoshca and La Vieja Escuela.



The Programme is being prepared