The International Architecture and Design Festival Concéntrico, now at its 7th edition, prompts an exploration of the urban environment through temporary installations inhabiting the public spaces of the city of Logroño, Spain. From September 2nd to 5th, the festival brings together an array of emerging architects and artists from all over the world to share their perspectives on urban spaces and communities.
Since its first edition in 2015, the annual event has invited city dwellers and visitors to experience the urban environment through temporary installations, complemented by a program of talks, activities and performances. The festival intends to bring new perspectives to the conversation around cities, public spaces and the places of coexistence.
It has something relevant from a social point of view, which is to put the city at the centre, and more so by means of propositional responses that speak a lot about architecture, but also about coexistence and meeting. Public spaces tend to be privatised, and on this occasion, we show that other models are possible, models in which the citizen is at the centre, proposing experimentation, civic communication, new uses of consolidated environments. - Director of Concéntrico Javier Peña Ibáñez
This year, 18 teams propose interventions in various places thought the city, tackling a wide array of themes, from the relationship between architecture and the landscape to democratic processes that shape the public space to co-creation and sustainability. “We are very interested in making Concéntrico a space where many perspectives and ways of dealing with the city intersect,” says Director of Concéntrico Javier Peña Ibáñez, adding that “perhaps more intensely this year, we put the focus on sustainability and the processes that carry out the festival.”
If there is one thing that unites them all, it is to create spaces for meeting, for communication and for living in the city, a fact that allows us to create collective memories, an attractive and suggestive imaginary that takes us to new ways of working in urban spaces and with the community.- Director of Concéntrico Javier Peña Ibáñez
Among the architects contributing to this year’s edition of Concéntrico are Paradigma Ariadné, Palma + Hanghar, LANZA Atelier, as well as VAPAA Collective, and Chavari Estudio. In addition to the urban interventions, the festival proposes a series of talks developed together with Acción Cultural Española, extending beyond the festival's timeframe in digital format.
