TAC! Urban Architecture Festival, is an annual festival, organized by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA) in collaboration with the Arquia Foundation, which promotes innovation and experimentation in architecture through the construction of a temporary Pavilion in different Spanish cities. The festival unites contemporary architecture, young practice, and open dialogue on the urban and social aspects of architecture through meetings and cultural activities.
National
Spain
Granada
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-10-14
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Fundación Arquia Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Sol Last name of representative: Candela Alcover Gender: Female Nationality: Spain Function: Director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: C/Tutor 16 Town: Madrid Postal code: 28008 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 917 56 10 50 E-mail:fundacion@arquia.es Website:https://fundacion.arquia.com/
TAC! is an initiative that is committed to the urban space and has a temporal relationship with the context in which today's society lives. It is an institutional project that, through collaboration, has become an initiative for the city. A part of the city is presented as a blank canvas, escaping the everyday, the monotonous, and the intervention seeks to create its own topography, giving content to the urban space, which is used as a tool for architectural and cultural education, based on what is local and specific to the place.
This programme, aimed at young architects, with an annual call, "was created with the main objective of making young architecture relevant in Spain, promoting talent and offering the opportunity to build a public work of reference".
TAC! Urban Architecture Festival, is an annual festival, organized by the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA) in collaboration with the Arquia Foundation, which promotes innovation and experimentation in architecture through the construction of a temporary Pavilion in different Spanish cities.
Both the cities and the pavilion will be selected through an open call for proposals. The project starts with an open call to select a city, then once the city and its public institutions are involved in the project, MITMA and Arquia Foundation make a second open call to select the team that will design the pavilion.
The festival combines contemporary architecture, young practice and an open dialogue on the urban and social aspects of architecture through meetings and cultural activities around the Pavilion that will establish a dialogue with the public. The project also seeks to identify and respond to local needs in terms of aesthetics, culture and social aspects.
Granada is the city that hosted the first edition of TAC!, whose AIRE pavilion by P+S Estudio de Arquitectura, the result of an international competition, was located in the Plaza del Humilladero from 10-14 to 11-14, 2022
Identity
Culture
Local
City
Sustainability
TAC! is a festival based on the principles of sustainability, inclusion and values the aesthetics and quality of the experience for the people who live the project. As mentioned above, the festival opens two calls in the selection process: one to choose a city in Spain where to set up, and another to select a team of architects who will design the temporary pavilion
Using the words of David Sobel in his book "PPlace-based Education: Connecting Classrooms & Communities” * on redefining environmental education: "...one of its main objectives is to study the relationship between the landscape, infrastructure, landmarks and traditional culture of the community, and how they influence each other. The city turned into a classroom. The installation as a tool for learning and experimentation and for the visitor not to be a mere spectator, but to take an active part...".
This year the winning pavilion proposal was "Air", the jury highlighted the ability to offer a shelter space in dialogue with the large scale of the city, enabling multiple uses in relation to the environment".
"Air" is a pavilion that starts from the imaginary of the ephemeral and the fragility of the unfinished. It is materialized, on the one hand with reusable elements in the architectural culture such as scaffolding, modular elements that are reused numerous times, and on the other hand with esparto grass, a sustainable material carried out by local and artisan labour as a way of rescuing Granada's identity and its climate. The "AIR" pavilion alludes to one of the most essential and intangible elements of architecture. An image that reflects the condition of unfinished or half-finished architecture. The aim is to take as a guide for action those fragile operations based on vernacular know-how to create an airy space woven between scaffolding and esparto grass.
*Place-based Education: Connecting Classrooms & Communities, David Sobel. Sin Prejuicios 4, 2022. Ed. Fundación Arquia
Understanding architecture as a discipline that encompasses the right balance between cultural, social, economic, environmental and technical aspects in order to respond to the demands of society is one of the fundamental tasks of the architectural profession. One of the objectives of TAC! is to be able to recover for the citizen those spaces that go unnoticed, that are invisible, residual or that citizens do not feel linked to them.
In TAC! the gesture of intervention is done through a temporary pavilion that respects the aesthetic and social environment of the place. Giving value to what already exists and making visible an environment that goes unnoticed and will now take on a new cultural and social use in which people are organically involved. In this first edition, the place of implementation is the Plaza del Humilladero, in Granada, a place of passage during the week and with certain urban complexities.
As previously mentioned, the winning proposal in the first edition was AIRE by P+S Studio. The pavilion was placed in the Humilladero square. The spatial strategy of the pavilion simulated the action of containing air, defining an indeterminate space open to the multiple needs of both the TAC! Urban Architecture Festival, as well as the city of Granada and its inhabitants, promoting the transformation and adaptability of the space without the need for major operations other than opening or closing the fragile boundary that defines it.
Therefore, "AIRE" establishes a new scenario of diverse, open, indeterminate and flexible encounters, which allows new relationships and uses to be woven into the Plaza del Humilladero in Granada. The use of local materials such as esparto grass is intended to deepen the identity of the city. For a whole month, numerous cultural activities of various kinds were held. The AIRE pavilion became a new focal point for design, culture, leisure and entertainment in the city of Granada.
The aim of the festival is to combine contemporary architecture and young practice with reflection on urban and social issues. After an open call to all Spanish cities, Granada was chosen to host the first edition of the festival. Granada City Council, in collaboration with MITMA, Arquia Foundation and the winning studio for the pavilion, has designed a diverse and intergenerational cultural programme.
Granada City Council has supported this first edition, convinced that an initiative such as TAC! is necessary for the social, professional and cultural revitalisation of a creative city like Granada.
The programme of cultural activities around the pavilion in the “Nazarí” city highlights the city as a place of creativity, science and music.
The result is a varied, accessible and affordable cultural programme for all kinds of audiences, with the novel idea of bringing architectural culture to the streets and to the general public.
Exhibitions, concerts, colloquia, dance workshops and activities that have highlighted the city's heritage in an attempt to deepen the sense of belonging and identity and also show the cultural activity inherent in the city.
For the city council and the organisers of TAC!, it was also important to offer a programme that was not only linked to the trends or needs of the city, but also to the wishes of the citizens, so that the AIRE pavilion could be used by the people in a natural way.
The fact that the festival is co-organised by different actors and at different levels has also made the programme more plural and diverse. The government, the foundation, the curators, the city council, architects and local cultural agents.
The "AIRE" pavilion is committed to the urban space and maintains this temporal relationship with the context in which today's society lives, so that it can be a meeting place where things happen at different times of the day.
The pavilion's cultural programme is a key factor in generating interest in the chosen enclave. An inclusive cultural programme that, in the specific case of the 2022 edition in Granada, has prioritised Nasrid culture, heritage, music, citizens' wishes, architectural culture, dance and literature, in an attempt to provide an attractive cultural offer for a diverse public.
Granada is a UNESCO Creative City of Literature, so the AIRE pavilion will host a variety of activities related to poetry and literature, from round tables to local and international presentations and readings. Granada is a city of music in all its styles, and this will be demonstrated with a selection of live jazz, pop-rock, tango, techno and hip-hop concerts.
Granada is a city of festivals such as Tango, of cinema with young filmakers, of crime novels such as Granada Noire, of magic, of jazz, of street theatre, Granada is also a city of science, with the University at the forefront, with an immense historical and architectural heritage in full development, with conservation work that will be reflected in the ephemeral building of the "AIRE" pavilion, with street exhibitions.
And if there is a universal neighbourhood for flamenco, it is undoubtedly Sacromonte, to which several activities are dedicated as a gateway to this unique neighbourhood and its people. But not only from the perspective of tradition, but also from the modernity of contemporary languages.
The General Directorate for Urban Agenda and Architecture of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA), in collaboration with the Arquia Foundation, are the organisers of the TAC! festival, promoting, financing and deciding on the curatorship of the festival. There will be two public calls for proposals, one for public institutions in Spanish cities and the other for young architects to design a temporary pavilion for the chosen site.
The first phase of the project is based on a public call open to all Spanish cities to become the next TAC! city. The selected city will be required to propose an inclusive, accessible and identity-based cultural programme that respects local wishes. They must provide the necessary technical information on the location of the temporary installation.
Once the city is known, an open call will be launched to design a temporary pavilion in the selected city. The competition is open to all architects, Spanish or otherwise, and at least one member of the team must be of Spanish nationality. The age limit for participants is 45 years.
Following the jury's decision, the creators of the winning proposal will receive a prize of 10,000 euros and will be able to carry out the project with an estimated basic budget of 90,000 euros for the construction of the pavilion, which may be increased through sponsorship. The TAC! festival will be responsible for the production and construction of the winning proposal in coordination with the selected team.
Granada was the city that hosted the first edition of TAC! The Plaza del Humilladero was the site of the pavilion, which was open to visitors from 14 October to 14 November 2022.
The main objective of TAC! is to create an accessible and shared architectural culture, to bring the profession's own thoughts to the street and to a global and transversal public. This will be achieved through a dialogue between the city council of the selected city and the team of architects responsible for designing the pavilion; the cultural programme agreed by all parties will not only be based on music, dance, science and tradition, but the idea is also to transfer certain architectural conversations to the public, so that they can become familiar with them and incorporate them as their own needs and interests.
The project is also an example of cultural mediation between actors at different levels, aiming to promote a diverse festival, initiated at a central level by public institutions of the State, but favouring decentralisation and local agency. Agents of TAC 2022: MITMA, Arquia Foundation, Granada City Council, P+S Estudio (winning pavilion team), local cultural agents (musicians, teachers, architecture university, dance associations, textile, thinkers, writers).
Urbanism, the fact that the proposal is initiated by launching an open call to all cities in Spain, prioritises an architectural and urban culture. The aim is to make city councils responsible for a dialogue between the planning of their city and a cultural proposal. To understand which places, work better and/or why, and which cultural policies can make the city think differently.
During the first edition of TAC! 2022, a total of 13,000 citizens attended the events that took place during the month-long festival. From 14 October to 14 November, the city of Granada was transformed by a new temporary cultural space in the Plaza del Humilladero. The pavilion was always full, both during the day and at night, especially at night, attracting and bringing together the residents of the area and many other citizens of Granada.
With the certainty of having gathered a diverse audience in terms of interests, gender and age. The response on social networks was mainly in the 30-35 age group and fairly balanced in terms of gender. There was a high level of national coverage, despite the fact that this is a local festival whose impact is intended to be at a community level.
Due to the success of the first edition, several cities have submitted proposals for the TAC! 2023 call. Based on the quality of the proposals submitted, two cities were selected: Valencia and Seville. While we wait for the locations of the temporary pavilions to be announced, TAC! 2023 will launch the open call for the design of the ephemeral installations in the coming months.
Last year's edition, with the choice of location and the materialisation of the Pabellón Aire, demonstrated the interest of the citizens of Granada in their identity, in their own local materials, as well as their curiosity about the colloquia on architectural culture.
It is not often that the central government launches a proposal that prioritises the dissemination of architectural culture at national level. TAC! is an educational and cultural initiative that incorporates the values of the New European Bauhaus as well as the objectives of the recently approved Law for the Quality of Architecture in Spain, proposed as a necessary legislative instrument to consolidate a new model of economic, energy and environmental transition that promotes greater inclusion and social cohesion.
We believe that the innovative character of TAC! lies in the fact that, in a first phase, the candidature of the city takes precedence over that of the pavilion, thus attempting to create an intrinsic dialogue that is not imposed from outside. This is an attempt to decentralise cultural production. A public call for a city to host a festival is less common than a competition for an ephemeral work, which is much more common in the field of architecture.
It also involves city councils in an architectural and urbanistic sense, trying to make them responsible for the social, cultural, aesthetic and environmental values that an architectural action can have on the city and its citizens. Many festivals or events put out to public tender the materialisation of a temporary pavilion, which in this case is supported by a previous tender related to the city.
Another innovative aspect of the cultural project is the attempt to decentralise the focus of cultural production at a national level, highlighting cities other than Madrid or Barcelona.
TAC! is an initiative launched by the General Directorate of Urban Agenda and Architecture of the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA), in collaboration with the Arquia Foundation, aimed at young architects and born with an annual vocation.
The mission of this festival is to combine contemporary architecture and young practice with reflection on urban and social issues through the construction of a temporary pavilion. TAC! promotes architecture in a direct way to bring it closer to the citizens, combining social interaction with cultural diffusion through the construction of a pavilion in a key location.
Each edition consists of two calls: A public call to become a TAC! city, to which any city council in Spain can apply with a cultural proposal to become a TAC! city. Candidate cities must also indicate the financial commitment of the relevant local institutions and draw up a timetable.
The second call is a competition of ideas for the design of the temporary pavilion. The competition will select one winner and 2 runners-up. The winner will be in charge of the realisation of the temporary and ephemeral project in the place decided by the TAC!
The pavilion must be ephemeral, inclusive, identifying, respectful and host cultural events of various kinds. The competition is open to all architectural professionals with at least one Spanish member of their team and under the age of 45.
In order to make the content of the proposals visible throughout the Festival, an exhibition of the best proposals will be organised in collaboration with architectural institutions. Once the pavilion has been created and the cultural proposal has been approved, the TAC Pavilion will be inaugurated and will offer a cultural programme to the selected city for one month.
TAC! It has been created with the aim of being an annual festival, repeated in different towns and cities throughout the Spanish territory, in order to promote the diversity and decentralisation of culture, as well as a global and transversal architectural culture.
A public call open to all cities in Spain, with a broad enough base to allow cities with different aspects and identities to develop a cultural proposal in line with a pavilion designed for that specific location.
Holding two calls for proposals makes it possible to generate a flexible project that can be replicated in different contexts. Involving the city council allows cultural programming to be based on local desires and trends rather than on global perspectives imposed from outside or from the centre.
Involving local actors in the design of the pavilion also allows the approach to be based on a respectful, identity-based sensibility, with the intention of creating a dialogue between the territory and its inhabitants, avoiding invasive objects that people cannot relate to.
One of the most outstanding advantages of this edition is the fact that a pavilion has been placed in a subtly decentralised location, the Plaza del Humilladero, within the city itself, which functions as a place of passage. It is not a landmark, it goes unnoticed, even though thousands of people pass through it every day. The choice of implementation allows the citizens to create a link with the place that goes beyond the routine work traffic and that has to do with culture, affection, entertainment and the relationship with architecture, from a non-invasive approach.
In accordance with the principles of good architectural practice, made by and for people, and in an attempt to create a festival where architecture is included as another accessible cultural programme, TAC! has as its fundamental objectives and challenges: identity, social inclusion, education and re-appropriation.
TAC! appeals to the identity of the citizens of Granada through a cultural programme that takes into account the needs and tastes of the people of Granada, as well as highlighting the architectural and cultural heritage of the Nasrid city, with a special emphasis on flamenco. Granada is a UNESCO City of Literary Creativity, which is reflected in the importance of literature and poetry in the cultural proposals of the programme, as well as music. A key gesture at TAC! 2022 was the fact that the Air Pavilion was made of esparto grass by local craftsmen, a direct reference to the territory and the city.
Another of TAC!'s objectives was to ensure social inclusion, both in the cultural offer of the festival and in the location of the temporary pavilion, which is located in a place that functions as a passageway, the Plaza del Humilladero. The Plaza del Humilladero is a wide triangle that acts as an off-centre junction between the Paseo del Salón boulevard and the Carrera del Genil or Carrera de la Virgen. Above all, however, it is the place where visitors used to enter the city after crossing the Zirí bridge over the River Genil. The cultural programme has prioritised a varied and multi-generational offer, involving all citizens.
Bringing architecture closer to the street, making it a necessary commodity accessible to everyone, not just the professionals who are dedicated to it. In this sense, TAC! has carried out a fundamental work of education and information, organising exhibitions and conferences on architecture in collaboration with ETSAG, University of Granada.
