Ama Arquitectura, AMIGÓ MACHADO ARRICIVITA Arquitectos, AMP Arquitectos (Felipe Artengo + Fernando Menis + José Mª Pastrana), AMP Arquitectos (Felipe Artengo + José Mª Pastrana), Ángel Vera, Angeles Mª Brito + Enrique Brito, Antifabrik (Elena García + Iván Ballesteros), Arquitectura Archipiélago, Artengo + Menis + Pastrana, Azul Televisión (Cirilo Leal), Cabildo Insular de Tenerife. Sostenibilidad, Territorio y Medio Ambiente, Cabrera y Febles Arquitectos, Caro&Mañoso Arquitectos Asociados, Casariego/ Guerra Arquitectos, Claudia Collmar + Robin Winogrod,COAC Demarcación de Tenerife, La Gomera y El Hierro, Coderch. Estudio de Urbanismo y Arquitectura, Corona y P. Amaral Arquitectos, Correa y Estévez Arquitectos, Cristina Gónzalez Vázquez de Parga, Daute Arquitectura, Dominique Perrault, Elias Torres + Cristina González Vázquez de Parga, Estudio Arkimet, Estudio Luengo, Eustaquio Mártinez Díaz, Excmo. Ayto. de La Laguna (FaustinoOrtiz), Excmo. Ayto. de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Federico Gacía Barba, Federico Gacía Barba + Cristina González Vazquez de Parga + Ángel García Palmas, Fernando Beautell + Juan Carlos Díaz Llanos, Gabriel Henríquez, GBGV Arquitectos (Federico García Barba + Cristina Gónzalez Vázquez de Parga), GESTUR Tenerife, Giur, GPY Arquitectos, Iñaki Ábalos, Iván Ballesteros, Jose Lucas Delgado Gorrín, José Ramón Oller, Juan A. Pinto Díaz + Jose J. Aguilar Ramos, Juan Antonio González Pérez, Juan Manuel Palerm Salazar, Juan Marcos Padrón García, Lavín Arquitectos, Luis Sanz Fernández, Manuel Cabrera + Eduardo González+ Virginia García, Maria Berga Bolaños, Maria Reyes Febles + David Mallo, Menis Arquitectos, MMA (Makin & Molowny Arquitectos) + Raúl Domínguez Pérez, N3 (Antonio Corona + Arsenio P Amaral + Eustaquio Martínez), Nieves Febles + Walter Beltrán, Pachi Mangado, Palerm y Tabares de Nava Arquitectos, Pedro Domínguez Anadón, Rafael Escobedo de la Riva, Raquel Guanche + David Izquierdo, Vina Barreto, Virgilio Gutiérrez Herreros, Virgilio Gutiérrez Herreros + Eustaquio Martínez Díaz, Virgilio Gutiérrez Herreros + Herzog & de Meuron, ZOOM Arquitectos

Known since ancient times as the Fortunate Islands, the cartographic location of the Canaries has made it a tri-continental platform where Latin America, Africa, Europe and even North America meet. This melting pot of cultures coming from constant migratory flows has created a singular territory that has been the scenario of a demographic approach and alternative spaces that make the Archipelago an invaluable place of observation. The dramatic quality of its fragmented geography, the isolation of the two thousand kilometres that separates it from the old continent, the added costs of its ultra-peripheral condition and the bureaucratic problems involved in “creating city” in the 21st century, are just some of the drawbacks the Canary Islands have had to face up to throughout its history so far. Since long ago the people of the Canaries have viewed their position in the world from the perspective of skilful rapprochements despite the insurmountable distances. The hunger for universality which Pedro García Cabrera touched on in his essay El hombre en función del paisaje, led to a unique form of expression in the history of contemporaneity in the Islands. At a time of upheaval in the history of Spain, García Cabrera, Eduardo Westerdahl and Domingo Pérez Minik sowed a seed that became the cornerstone for the later development of contemporaneity in the Canaries: the Gaceta de arte and the host of unprecedented cultural expressions the movement produced. In 1935 they paved the way for holding the second international surrealism exhibition in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, organised by André Breton and Benjamin Peret and featuring works by Óscar Domínguez, Picasso and Marx Ernst among others. The far-reaching historic dimensions of this intellectual event, coupled with the seed sown by the Gaceta de arte group and its postulates, situated the Canaries in the very vortex of modernism at the time and brought them closer than ever to Europe. Its relationship with the architecture of the moment (Duiker, GATEPAC, Gropius, Hilberseimer, Sartoris) comprised an international style in which rationalism, of which Westerdahl was a great defender, left a huge print on the Islands. After the parenthesis of the Spanish Civil War, a new architectural movement came into being based on the folklorist clichés of the neo-Canarian style, intrinsically bound to the insular debate on the search for an idealised identity. Nonetheless, less that half a century was sufficient to erode the wealth of the landscape in a fragile and limited natural environment where economic development grounded on mass tourism brought about a significant deterioration with serious consequences. This circumstance coupled with the unplanned growth of towns and cities with a high degree of urban marginality, have seriously transformed the territory of the islands. Nevertheless, the Canaries still possess a number of landscape singularities that have allowed distinct considerations on the search for new architectural parameters.

The strategic geographical situation of the Archipelago enables a contemplation from the distance of different architectural proposals taking place in the contemporary scene, but at the same time this distance also enables a paused analysis adapting them to the particularities of their surroundings. This is the backdrop for the origin of modernism in the Canaries. Given this situation of exterior observation and in the search for a response coherent with the recourses and the place, there exists a common and identifying element which is THE LANDSCAPE. Its intensity and diversity in the territory transform it into the most powerful and defining factor and demands very different architectural solutions. Contributions like those by Rubens Henríquez, Luis Cabrera, Vicente Saavedra and Javier Díaz- Llanos or César Manrique, who grounded their architecture in an exaltation of the natural and vernacular architecture while also undertaking an intense intellectual task in confronting the limitations of the context of the time, laid the foundations for the renewed values of the current social and environmental circumstances. This particularity, together with the cultural task of the College of Architects, was fundamental in the creation of the new generation of architecture professionals who are showcased in this exhibition. With better technological and economic means, they have developed an intellectual output related with the landscape in the contemporary space, whose works and results are the object of reflection in this exhibition.

The goal of the show is to open a path for a work of documentation and a reflection on the landscape that will enable an interpretation of the territory and help to create an ongoing laboratory for research and analysis on the environment in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It will also teach us to see the responses to these reflections on the landscape in order to know where it is we want to reach.