The new edition of Arquinset starts off with an encounter for “Creating a public database of real estate corpses" and a workshop: "Document from the air" organized by Basurama. A premier of the documentary "Empty Houses” by Marisol Soto Romero and Manuel Muñoz Monterde closes this year’s architectural week.

One of the most significant consequences of the current economic crisis in Spain is the proliferation of unfinished, underused or vacant architectural and urban developments. Large ghost towns, abandoned public buildings or partially finished infrastructures have become an indelible part of landscape which has been altered by an institutionalized megalomania of absurd dimension. This nationwide phenomenon covers both territorial and socio-political context.

As a response to the lack of an official inventory of the abandoned speculative construction, the collective project “Leftovers of speculative real estate bubble, a database” proposes to locate and document all  premature real estate corpses that litter this country . The  initiative, with has a marked interdisciplinary approach, englobes architects, engineers, city planners, researchers, artists and environmental activists and pretends to reach out to a wide and numerous group of participants.

The aim of this ambitious compilation is to provide comprehensive and accessible information  for everyone to use .  Although providing  this type of information clearly implies a critical view of the of the speculative real estate development, the database aims to be the starting point for future proposals about these modern ruins and to promote social awareness about this built and abandoned  reality of ours which we cannot ignore.

Arquinset 2nd edition: Contemporary Landscapes
Location: Disseny Hub Barcelona
Date: October-November 2014

Curator: Julia Schulz-Dornburg
Coorganizers: Pablo Rey Mazón, Eugenia Troncoso

Participants: Basurama (Pablo Rey Mazón), Ecologistas en acción (Rodrigo Calvo, Ana Fernandez), Medit-Urban (Carlos Arroyo), Nación Rotonda (Rafael Trapiello, Miguel Álvarez), Neoruinas (Sheila Hernández), Montera34 (Alfonso Sánchez), Francisco Fdez Ferreiro (Ladrillazo), Marisol Soto Romero, Manuel Muñoz Monterde, Francesc Muñoz, Juli Ponce.
Production: Arquinfad
Arquinfad Coordinators: Margarita Kirchner, Ana Acón

Photography: Xavi Padrós