Event

Wednesday 18 March, 19:30

Flashes of genius

Alongside the exhibition

Organized alongside the exhibition "Illuminations. Visionary Catalonia", an exhibition about the visionaries and the impassioned whose legacy has opened the doors of modernity to Catalonia for eight centuries, this series of lectures sets out to analyse some of these illuminations and discuss the sources that inspired or led to these visions in the fields of architecture, literature and music.

 

Although good sense, measure and sound judgment have given Catalonia a name for being a country with its feet firmly on the ground, extravagance has always found supporters there. The existence of rapture has gone to construct an identity founded on an imaginary fuelled by generations of madmen, chimerics and romantics, staging the eternal conflict between the figures of the poet and the banker, the illuminated and the pragmatic. Just as responsible as flashes of genius for the construction of this imaginary are the social reformers and the tradition of a popular culture associated with the land, the landscape and city construction.



Wednesday, 18 March, at 7.30 p.m.


... in architecture and urban form | The spirit of genius in the utopias of the urban miracle of Barcelona. A utopian form, a messianic action and a myth that grew up around the social city and took form in the visual arts: the Sagrada Família and Gaudí, the demiurge. How Gaudí conditioned today's city, the interpretation and reception of his city, its influence on recent architects, local and foreign, and on the construction of the post-modern city.


Lecture by Juan José Lahuerta, architect and architecture historian.



Thursday, 19 March, at 7.30 p.m.


... in the written word | The writer has taken on the role of the sacred squandered by religions to become a prophet and a priest. How does this rapture materialize in Catalan literature? What mark has it left on the written word of the 20th century? The sources, the myths, the literature of the marvellous and the fantastic, speculative literature and the visionary construction of the genre.


Round table with the participation of:
Xavier Bru de Sala, writer
David Castillo, writer and literary critic
Cristina Masanés, writer

Moderator: Pilar Parcerisas, curator of the exhibition



Friday, 20 March, at 7.30 p.m.

... in visionary music | How reason, science and intuition unite in a cosmic view of the world, sung in the light of tradition to create a galactic cosmos based on philosophical illuminism, where the eye of Llull brings understanding at the large scale. Fighting superstition with genius and the whiff of libertarian mysticism engender a music of light and certainty.


Round table with the participation of:

Pau Riba, musician
Jaume Sisa, musician
Jordi Valls, sound conceptualist

Moderator: Pilar Parcerisas, curator of the exhibition