PRE_IMAGINARIES2020
a visual prospective from the field of architecture to imagine the city before it comes into being.
“With more than 2,250 visitors, 135 participants, and over 400 images on display, PRE_I2020 was the first event organized by young architects and architecture students from Zaragoza to mark a turning point in the reflection on the practical applications of architecture in the wake of this tumultuous year, 2020. . The exhibition succeeded in gathering and connecting a vast collection of graphic documents from architectural projects by students from all over Spain and by both Spanish and international professional firms, serving as a vast collective IMAGINARY to begin understanding the possibilities for the future of our cities. Through this exhibition, our goal from the very beginning was to introduce the public—and in this case, the citizens of Zaragoza—to the communication tools inherent in the language of architecture, and in this sense, to highlight the appeal of the graphic documents we produce daily in our projects, as a foundation for dialogue and an exchange of perspectives on the future: “A visual perspective from architecture to imagine the city before it happens.” Likewise, as architects, we aim to understand the potential of our mediating role in the new challenges that the present is posing, so that we may also position ourselves within this amalgam of intersecting realities as interpreters and designers—absorbing what the context and our relationships can teach us and processing this information through design and architecture to propose solutions.” The digital installation developed for PRE_IMAGINARIOS2020 allowed the physical exhibition setup to center on the visitors themselves, as the builders of the great collective pre_imaginary. Based on the appweb’s usability and interactivity instructions posted at the entrance to the exhibition space, we proposed that visitors share their own personal imagination by selecting the images on display that most closely resonated with it. By scanning the QR code associated with each image using their smartphones, visitors updated the large projected “pre-imaginary,” causing the selected images to grow in size with each new vote and keeping the collective mosaic alive and ever-changing until the exhibition closed. A live-streamed representation of current imaginaries about the city post-2020.
