Exhibitions
Award-winning architecture: 125 years that have shaped Barcelona
An exhibition at Oliva Artés reviews the history of the FAD Awards and their antecedents, from the municipal awards of the late 19th century to contemporary architecture.
Barcelona has a long love story with architecture, but also with the way it is recognized, documented and converted into collective heritage. As part of Barcelona 2026, World Capital of Architecture, the Oliva Artés space of the Barcelona History Museum is hosting An Award-Winning Architecture: 125 Years of Awards , an exhibition that covers more than a century of awards and works that have contributed to transforming the city and the region.
The exhibition, produced by ARQUIN-FAD with the support of the Mies van der Rohe Foundation and Barcelona City Council, focuses on the 67 years of uninterrupted history of the FAD Architecture and Interior Design Awards, created in 1958, and on its predecessors: the City of Barcelona Architecture and Urbanism Awards, promoted by the City Council since the end of the 19th century.
Through photographs, documents and audiovisual materials, the exhibition reconstructs the evolution of Catalan and Iberian architecture over more than a century. It is not only a tour of the award-winning buildings, but also an approach to the changes experienced by Barcelona, to the new architectural languages and to the different ways of understanding the city, public space, housing and landscape.
The FAD Awards were born with a focus on Barcelona and its buildings. Over time, however, their scope gradually expanded: in 1978 they incorporated the metropolitan area; in 1987, the entire Catalan territory, and since 1996 they have embraced the Iberian Peninsula. This transformation also reflects the evolution of awards that have become one of the main references in the country's architectural culture and the architecture awards with the longest history in Europe.
Curated by architects Pau de Solà-Morales and Ignasi Bonet, the exhibition offers a transversal reading of the different editions of the awards and the works that have left their mark on the built environment. The itinerary connects the first competitions for urban buildings and establishments with the successive editions of the FAD Awards and other distinctions that have contributed to consolidating Barcelona as an international reference in architecture and design.
The exhibition occupies approximately 400 square meters of Oliva Artés, a former factory rehabilitated in Poblenou that is now part of the spaces of the Barcelona History Museum. A setting that reinforces the relationship between industrial memory, urban transformation and contemporary architecture that runs through the entire proposal.
Award-winning architecture: 125 years of awards can be visited from June 25 to September 27. The exhibition is part of the Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture program, and claims the importance of awards as a testament to a city in permanent transformation. After all, behind every award there is a work, and behind every work, a certain way of imagining and building the city.
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