The Universitat de València has inaugurated on Monday 3 March at noon at the recently inaugurated Espai Vives, the exposition ‘Habitar el Vives. Memories of a university space’, an exhibition that lays out the recovery of history, the memory of Javier Goerlich’s building, currently Espai Vives, an icon of Valencian rationalist architecture, which has been recognised as “Bien de Interés Local” (Good of Local Interest); the live of its residents and cultural activities from visual documents recovered from institutional archives and family albums.
The inauguration has had speeches from the principal, Maria Vicenta Mestre; the vice-principal of Culture and Society, Ester Alba; the commissioner of the exhibition, Paco de la Torre; the deputy commissioner and principal of Lluís Vives Hall of Residence (1998-2007), Lluís Puig; the last supervisor of the centre, José María Goerlich and the artist José María Yturralde.
The principal of the UV has highlighted the importance of this exhibition which recovers the memory of what once was the hall of residence until 2012. “Going to university is not only to stand up for an academic curriculum, but to educate ourselves in values and principles such as equality, respect, solidarity and inclusion, especially in the times we’re living in. And living in a university hall of residence contributes to that sense of cohabitation and the training of citizens.” In that sense, both this exhibition and the recently inaugurated Espai Vives intend to preserve the essence of what once was the hall of residence, as a centre of cultural dissemination and innovation, and it is intended as a space for the student body of a public university and open to society.
Lluís Puig’s speech was specially moving, he was the supervisor of this space for almost a decade and in his own words he has said that the bond he has with the hall of residence is especially personal: “I lived here for 9 years and I made this place my home, and for that, the exhibition Habitar el Vives is like an invitation to come back home,”. From the CM. Lluís Vives has specified some of the peculiarities: it was the first mixed university hall of residence in Spain and the long history of cultural dissemination that it has done.
The commissioner of the exhibition has explained that it is structured in three sections, where a great deal of posters, invitations, photographs and videos of poetry readings, film screenings, or classical music, rock, pop or electronic concerts taking place in the site are shown. It is also included a selection of architectural project blueprints, original historical documentation, design objectives and a mock-up of the building.
In the first section, dedicated to the “rationalist Icon” building, its architectural value is presented in the historical context of the city of Valencia. The building, designed by Javier Goerlich, was a part of a first-rate urban project in the first half of the 20th century: la Ciudad Universitaria (University City), which helped expand urbanisation to the Valencian capital toward the east, following the Paseo Valencia al Mar, and contributed to forming a district of administrative functions, which it is difficult to understand the current functional structure of the city without it. In this section, the 1945 original watercolour alongside the blueprints are included, as well as the Proyecto de División (Division Project) of 1953 to accommodate the halls of residence Alejandro Salazar and Luis Vives. The glass plates of the first photographic feature of the building c. 1954 are also exhibited, alongside a selection of photographs of authors like Luis Vidal, Juan Peiró or Mayte Piera.
In the second section, in ‘Habitar de Vives’, the stories of students, workers and the people who lived in this very peculiar space are featured, ‘la Comunidad Universitaria’. Hundreds of photographs form family albums and personal memories are included, such as the silver and gold buttons the Hall used to give, together with their first democratic statutes or the first edition of ‘Vivir el Vives’ magazine.
Lastly, the third section focuses on the commitment this institution has always had with culture and society. Since the advent of democracy, in the 80s, the opening of the hall to the public with the organisation of thematic sessions and cultural activities in the framework of the Transition and by the hall is produced, along with the participation of public figures like José Luis Aranguren, Manuel Boix, Joan Lerma… with the opening of the Auditorium in the old Chapel in 1999, a period of great activity starts, centred in a musical programme and movie cycles, which turned it into a benchmark in Valencia, with the international performaces of Antony and the Johnsons and indie group of the Spanish scene like La Habitación Roja.
The exhibition collects four audio-visuals, where the outcomes of the research are thematically presented. It is important to point out a documentary that includes 27 students’ testimonies from the centre, some of those who stand out are art critic and chair of Aesthetics Román de la Calle; professor emeritus and winner of a medal for the Uv, Manuel Costa or José María Yturralde (Plastic Arts National Awards 2020), artist and personal friend of the then supervisor José María López Piñero, who attended the hall in the seventies and for which he created two large-sized pieces, one of his first professional commissions that have been recovered for the exhibition.
The exhibition, which will be available until 10 July, is organised by La Nau Cultural Centre and the Office of the Vice-Principal for Culture and Society in collaboration with the Generalitat Valenciana (Valencian Government) and TAU (Audiovisual Workshop of the Universitat de València).
History of the centre
During the second republic, the Universitat de València decide to create a Hall of Residence, conceived like the one founded in Madrid, la Junta para Ampliación de Estudios, following the ideas of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution of Education) However, the uprising against the Republic halted the project and the victory of the rebels in the civil war resulted in the substitution of the Republican model by the traditional model of the Hall of Residence to house university students.
The Architect Javier Goerlich was in charge of developing the design of a building that possessed both the initial Republican idea, presented in 1935, and that of the successors, which, responding to the victors’ ideas, led to the inauguration of the Lluís Vives Hall of Residence of the Universitat de València in 1954 in the right wing, and, a few years later, of the Alejandro Salazar Hall of Residence of the Spanish University Union in the left wing.
On the basis of Goerlich’s architectural form and function –original rationalist design revised throughout its history, from the façade rooms, dormitories, dining area, library or cafeteria– we construct the memory of the building through the experiences and memories of the ones who lived in it throughout six decades. A necessary past, which defines its identity and illuminates its future. Its memory, beyond any date, document or image, collectively consists of the memory and experiences of its dwellers, a sum of intimate and collective stories that occurred inside the rooms of the building. But also, of the cultural activities that made up its conception as an open space to the city from its origins, holding conferences, exhibitions, debates, homages, sessions, cinema forum or concerts.
