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Metropoli Fundation

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Cities
- art

‎Art and Creativity for theCities of the Future

From its inception, Fundacion Metropoli has cooperated closely with the arts as the creative forces of innovation. Its Cities Art Program, led by Ana Gorroño Arrizabalaga enables FM to work with artists as essential partners in innovative design projects. Cities Art is a program which aims to involve the role of the arts as the engine of creativity and innovation in the design of the built environment. The program believes in the great possibilities that arise from the fusion of architecture, urbanism, landscape, painting, sculpture and new technologies in order to build and design the future of cities and regions.
Matter
Matter
Benjamin Cano

Gestures, traces, material, qualities, and artist techniques intermingle with extraordinary mastery. Plaster, gauze, cotton, resin, steel, and pigments, paper or found objects, are some of the elements composed and assembled by the artist who extracts the maximum expression from them. These physical alterations also bear with the countless wounds. The subtle use of fabrics and stitching materialize this process filled with the light, healing, and pain that once reveals compassion and redemption.

Mapping Complexity
Mapping Complexity
Esther Pizarro

Esther Pizarro is one of the artists that has work with more sensitivity the relationship between art and architecture. Mapping Complexity exhibition focuses on relevant topics from today’s contemporary Metropolis: mobility, structure, connectivity, physical/digital networks, big data, urban profiles, polycentric urban systems and the inherent complexity between urbanity and landscape. In a crossing of methodologies interpreting city and territory, and based on studies undertaken by Fundacion Metropoli, this exhibition demonstrates through three sculptural installations the multiple strata of significance and visualization of the contemporary city.

PNEUMA
PNEUMA
Benjamin Cano

This exhibition by Benjamín Cano is focused on the mystery of the human in constant transformation, anticipation, and movement. The artist’s way of looking emerges in his search for the original and the immanent, for primitive marks and abysmal depths. It implies penetrating into the layers of flesh (Sarx), but also into the spirit (Pneuma), into an almost paleontologically descent through the infinite strata of our core. Gestures, traces, material qualities, and the techniques involved intermingle with extraordinary mastery. Plaster, gauze, cotton, resin, steel, and pigments, paper or found objects are some of the elements composed and assembled by the artist who extracts the maximum expression from them.

Shaping Ideas
Shaping Ideas
Toni Cumella

Shaping Ideas exhibition by Toni Cumella focuses and explains masterfully the symbiosis between ceramics and architecture, where tremendous results are achieved. Concentrating on the four main fabrication processes in use at Ceramica Cumella- extruding, casting, pressing and revolving- this exhibition within Fundacion Metropoli presents the work of Toni Cumella and the application of his ceramics in some contemporary architecture’s most significant projects.

A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
Iñaki Bergera

The exhibition “A Tale of Two Cities” by the Spanish architect and photographer Iñaki Bergera confronts two of the most important metropolis of the world: New York and Istanbul. New York City is the 21st century Rome, icon of capitalism, whereas Istanbul digs in the roots of its own history to literally become the physical border that joins and separates Occident and Orient. Both metropolises live surrounded by contradictions, contrasts and similarities: culture and religion, consumerism and capitalism, poverty and opulence, race and gender. The exhibition, which is a half photographic essay and half social documentary, portraits through analogies a selection of urban pictures that have de-contextualized so that the observer can, without interferences, have its own conclusions.

El Frontón y el Pelotari
El Frontón y el Pelotari
Fernando Pagola

From the origins of Fundacion Metropoli, the work of Fernando Pagola has been a reference of creativity and authenticity. The work showed within “Neuma” exhibition is composed of photos, paintings and geometrical sculptures. His paintings are not represented in traditional frames but in big boxes with an imposing presence that gives some depth to his work where texture is most important. The set of his paintings –boxes- creates different paths in the space where you can follow the offered directions. These paths become a spatial experience: from open to closed spaces, light and shadow ones; spaces highlighted with different milestones and spaces with surprises along the track. The geometrical sculptures, created by juxtaposing his boxes, remind us his homeland and traditions. In particular the “fronton”, way more than just a sport, becomes a meeting space and a relevant spot of the city. The image of the “pelotari” is as well important which is represented, like the Ancient Greece athletes, as a hero in a series of colorful frames going from figurative to abstract.

Babel
Babel
Gonzalo Páramo

Babel by Gonzalo Páramo is part of the continuous program of public exhibitions of Cities Art. Gonzalo Páramo’s personal trajectory and conception of his work brought him to the philosophy of Fundacion Metropoli: the Interaction between art and environment, the city and what happens within it. The work of Gonzalo is characterized by its unity. It is known that the style of a painter does not always consist in being denoted by a formal pattern repeated over and over again that provokes easily recognition form the amateur or the art collector. In Paramo’s work is more important that which is looked for than what is found. We are facing a writerly painter, author of broad panoply of writings –interior words- that give rhythm and vibration to his paintings: the artist incorporates in his creations different graphics which are sun-dappled and hermetic and give some mystery to the whole canvas.

Sculptures
Sculptures
Carles Valverde

Carles Valverde is an artist who though his vital trajectory and the conceptualization of his work, responds perfectly to the philosophy of Fundacion Metropoli: the interaction of art with its surroundings, the city and all that cities encompass. The employed techniques, even in two dimensions, allows us to appreciate the crafts of an sculptor that uses historical and present techniques and makes us think about the place of the artist within an urban, social and industrial environment. The lead and iron sculptures in the work of Carles are materials that achieve their goal of accessing another reality. We can describe his work, but not interpret it. It creates new experiences between form and its content; space and its possible interpretations. In themselves, the geometric interpretations of the modular materials create for us a collection of sensations. The lead sculptures situated in both interior and exterior spaces possess a serene balance, where we perceive the relationship of the parts of the sculpture and the force that acts among them. It is not only the physical space of the work that we perceive, but also the interaction that is produced in the space where the work is exhibited. Carles Valverde prefers asking these questions than finding solutions.

For Peace and Life
For Peace and Life
Jesus Soler

For Peace and Life exhibition by Jesus Soler is an example, with its own personality, of the best expressionism of today. The beginning of the 21st century is a period of dizzying changes and unexpected jolts that shake the balance between civilizations and cultures in a globalized world. Jesus Soler with a torn visual language expresses the generalized disillusionment provoked by the recent fratricidal conflicts represented in all of his works. The exhibition within Fundacion Metropoli showed the acceleration of social change, the depth of historical convulsions and individual and collective perplexity in the face of the impact of the events that we know in real time due to the advance of telecommunications, the Internet and the development of the media. Jesus Soler critically merges plastic art and poetic creation. His brush strokes let us see a freer and more hopeful future. A future in which peace is possible.

Art of Philadelphia
Art of Philadelphia
Raquel Montilla

Art of Philadelphia exhibition by Raquel Montilla Higgins refers us to an emotional space where dualisms vertical-horizontal, visual-tactile, organic-synthetic, inside-outside, partial-total, invite the spectator to interrogate himself about his own nature. This withdrawal to the interior, triggered by the artist leads to Martin Heidegger’s existentialism. Raquel takes us to an inhabited place filled with memories of his childhood where there is no room left for mathematics or geometry. All in all, her work generates a space linked to mankind through vital relationships, and where each place carries a special meaning.

Landscapes
Landscapes
Fermín Ramírez de Arellano

Landscapes exhibition by Fermín Ramírez de Arellano gathers the sensibility about our nowadays landscape, such as their evolution through history. The composing elements of these landscapes are more than simple and isolated pieces, and create a whole vision which determinates in the end the entourage where we live and our activities take place. The spectator is a fundamental part of the work, interpreting and borrowing these landscapes. This is why these pieces go beyond figurativism and use techniques more suggesting based on textures and materials. “Perhaps this exhibition (together for the first time), demonstrates closely those two fields of my attention throughout the years. The artworks belong to different moments, but cohabitate immediately, joined as a clarifying summery of my past trajectory and present. For all of this, as I were a child again, I invite you enter into my imaginary castle and visit the artworks with me which can only be complete with your viewing”.

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Knowledge
- sharing

Fundación Metrópoli is an ‘intellectual capital institution’ which aspires to contribute to the innovation and development of cities and regions from a global perspective. It aims to achieve its goal through knowledge creation and sharing, the key to innovation in its view. Thus the Fundación Metrópoli is proactive in creating strategic partnerships by harnessing its extensive network of institutional, strategic and knowledge partners which comprise an increasing number of cities, universities and other research institutions.

/ ‎Mayor’s Institute & Mayor’s Summit

Fundación Metrópoli considers it essential to cooperate with mayors in developing spatial strategies. Convinced that both mayors and urbanists would benefit from a dialogue, Fundación Metrópoli set up a Mayors’ Institute, a platform for exchange of political leadership and urban policy.
This would enable all interested parties to gain a better understanding of each other’s’ vision of the city. Its brief is to provide mayors with opportunities to interact with professionals and other organisations of city stakeholders.
The Mayors’ Summits provide an effective forum for dialogue between politicians and professionals of the built environment.

/Fellowships

FM Advanced Research Fellowship was created to bring talented young professionals to the Fundación Metrópoli in Madrid for the purposes of knowledge creation and sharing. The Fundación Metrópoli, at its headquarters at the Ecobox in Madrid, provides an international platform for young professionals to learn and research different eco-urban and innovative design methodologies in a multidisciplinary professional environment. Candidates in the program will engage in learning, sharing and researching the methods necessary to influence the creative transformation of the territory and of future cities in innovative and sustainable ways.

Candidates will be exposed to:
– New projects and global sites for researching
– Professional & practical experience
– International networking
– Investigation | Innovation | Incubation Methodology
– International recognition
– Visiting lecture series:
Learning from Cities
Learning from Practice
Learning from Universities

The FM Advanced Research Fellowship is open to international applicants who hold a Masters degree (its equivalent) or higher in fields related to City and Regional Planning and Design. Applicants should have completed their advanced degree in the following areas of study; City and Regional Planning, Urban Design, Architecture, Urban Planning & Landscape Architecture.

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Publications

/ Knowledge Creation and Sharing

Fundacion Metropoli attaches great importance to knowledge sharing to which it attributes considerable resources. Its publications constitute its main instrument to disseminate its ideas and its projects. Most publications are produced with knowledge partners and protagonists of the projects initiated by Fundacion Metropoli, which presents its work also at international events and in academic settings.

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Awards

/‏‏‎ Cities Awards for Excellence

Fundacion Metropoli Cities Awards for Excellence highlight the strategic importance of cities and regions, and recognize the “world class” achievements made by individuals, institutions, or cities in advancing the field of urbanism. The award aspires to be the one of the highest distinction that can be internationally awarded in the field of urban planning. The prestige of the award is not derived from its economic value, but rather from the rigor, neutrality, and the capacity of the institutions that make up the Proyecto Cities initiative to identify innovative projects.

The Cities Award seeks to identify and internationally disseminate the most relevant and innovative contributions in the fields of urbanism, city and regional planning. The candidates for the award will be individuals, institutions, cities, or regions that have made significant contributions to the world of cities, and whose work can be considered as a world-class international reference. The award aspires to identify and celebrate those contributions that are singular, relevant, and internationally recognisable as world-class references for their contribution to, and improvement of, our collective efforts in the field of cities and regions.

/ Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize

For several years Fundacion Metropoli has been a knowledge partner of the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize. Fundacion Metropoli’s role along its participant years has been to nominate, select candidates and evaluate the nominees for this biennale.

The Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize is a biennial international award that honours outstanding achievements and contributions to the creation of liveable, vibrant and sustainable urban communities around the world. The Prize is awarded to cities and recognises their key leaders and organisations for displaying foresight, good governance and innovation in tackling the many urban challenges faced, to bring about social, economic and environmental benefits in a holistic way to their communities.

fundation metropoli

fundation metropoli