Galería Il•lacions Barcelona, Catalan Design Gallery at Carrer Notariat, Spanish Building Project Images
Galería Il•lacions, Barcelona Design Gallery
Catalan Interior on Carrer Notariat, Spain
post updated 10 May 2024
Location: Carrer Notariat, centre of city – close to MACBA, FAD and CCCB
Barcelona’s first design gallery to open in February
• The first private space devoted to design will open doors early in 2011.
• Galería Il•lacions will debut with a steel furniture show, on the edge between sculpture and design.
19 Dec 2010
Galería Il•lacions Barcelona
Barcelona, December 2010.
Il•lacions galeria de disseny
February 2011 is the date: Galería Il•lacions, the first private space in Barcelona focusing on design opens its doors. The Gallery aims to become the main meeting point of national and international designers and creators. It is a unique venue among the galleries in Barcelona, as there is no other devoted only to this discipline, which normally shares its space with painting or sculpture.
According to Xavier Franquesa, one of the founding partners of Il•lacions “Barcelona is one of the main European capitals of design. If London has four galleries devoted to it, Paris has three or four, Praga has one…”why don’t we have one? From the moment a Barcelonian wakes up to the point where he goes to bed, he or she will always be sorrounded by design.
It’s in the street furniture, in the shops, in the clothes created by the riskiest, most brave designers, in its publishing industry, in museums…There’s an undergrowth, a series of layers, of deposited sediments which time after time have been leaving their imprint on the history of the city. Il•lacions’s mission is to take care of that imprint.”
Il•lacions is not an initiative of a group of gallery owners, but of a designer collective, which gives the space a whole new sensitivity, closer to that of creators and espectators and which will try to work both on commercial and pedagogical terms, as it will attempt to get design closer to a wide audience: “We’d like to explain why objects are the way they are and not in some other way, we’d like to tell people how many months or years are needed to build a good chair, introduce the audience to creators they thought they would never have access to, and contribute a certain sensitivity in the choice of objects and contents. In the fifties, in Germany, there was a school program called Werkbundkiste, where a box filled with very well designed objects (such as sieves, jars, glasses…) was shown around.
The objects were properly explained and reasoned. The children were taught how to appraise those designs and how to tell them apart from the ones that weren’t quite as good. They would say, for instance “with this coffee-maker’s handle you won’t get burnt, but with this other you could have an accident”. It’s basically a matter of applying and understanding the form follows function” adage, says Franquesa.
The gallery, which is just across the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (MACBA), FAD and Centro de Cultura Contemporánea (CCCB), occupies the ground floor of a building from the XIXth century renovated by Ill•lacions promoters. The concept behind the renovation has been to consolidate the spirit of the place by fixing the multiple layers of wallpaper, exhibiting pencil drawn graffitti from times long gone. The hidraulic tiles, over 100 years old, have been restored and so have been two steelcast columns. Its unique atmosphere moves away from the classic, aseptic white walls and cement of floor of most art galleries.
The first exhibit will be a show of metal furniture by MSB Miquel Subiràs, essential steek pieces that fluctuate between design and sculputure. They are conceived to be admired when not in use and they call back to the gist of the place where they were born. Subiràs is a steel virtuoso, a luthier who works with metal, and the author of several striking architecture projects. After this exhibition, the gallery will host the shows of visual artists, first rate photographers, trendsetting fashion designers such as Josep Abril or industrial designers such as Sarah Böttger, who will show her new work in glass.
Il•lacions is founded by Xavier Franquesa, designer and Ellen Rapelius, architect.
Il•lacions galeria de disseny C/Notariat, 3 Barcelona 08001
www.illacions.cat
Galería Il•lacions Barcelona images / information from Il•lacions galeria de disseny
Location: Carrer Notariat, 3 Barcelona 08001, Catalunya, Northeast Spain, southwestern Europe
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picture from architect
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image : Foster + Partners
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