ESALA Visiting Lecture: Israel Alba – Infrastructural Landscapes

Edinburgh College of Art's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture welcomes you to a lecture and roundtable discussion from visiting architect, Israel Alba. With support from Sacyr and Instituto Cervantes in Manchester | Cervantes Chair.

Abstract

Due to their proximity to cities, urban landfills are places with great potential for change, full of possibilities. Since the metropolis is constantly expanding, the distance between it at the landfill is always relative, as waste is first expelled and then incorporated again. The city of the 21st century interacts with the territory around it to build a new infrastructural landscape. This is achieved by means of an architectural device, fundamental to the contemporary landscape, that is an amalgam of natural and artificial: the ground as a manipulated topography and support for new activities. Located on the site of a former landfill, the Valdemingomez forest park in Madrid represents a palimpsest of our society, the future to be written over the traces of the past. A landscape from wasteland, that comes to be understood as a contemporary infrastructure.

About Israel Alba

Israel Alba is an architect (ETSAM 2000, Ph.D. ETSAM 2015, Cum Laude) and member of the Spanish Society of Landscape Architects (AEP) since 2016. In 2000, he established his firm of architecture, design and landscape architecture in Madrid, Spain. Since 2018 he is Design Studio Professor at URJC, where he currently leads the Architectural Design Department. Between 2016 and 2019 he was a guest lecturer at the School of Architecture of the State University of New York (SUNY), USA. In 2007-2017 he was a Professor at the Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca (UPSAM). Israel Alba has lectured in India, Malaysia, Brazil, Argentina, United States, Italy, Mexico and Spain. His work has been widely exhibited, published and internationally awarded, including contributions to the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 (Spanish Pavilion) and 2021 (Italian Pavilion). Through its operating platform WASTE LAB CAN, its architecture focuses on the issue of waste and its possible solutions.

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Host or Publisher Edinburgh College of Art