The development of mankind, the origin of civilisation, the creation of culture and cities run hand in hand with the food we eat. Cultivation and Culture are one and the same word. The definition of City, according to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), is an urban area, as opposed to a rural area, whose dense and numerous population is not engaged in agricultural activities. The latest report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends a diet of 2,500 kilocalories produced with systems that use less energy.

How can we change our way of life without changing our traditions and history? If we are to avoid climate change, how are we going to produce food and once again enjoy a balanced relationship with the land, the fields and the city? What role does architecture play on all these levels?

This exhibition addresses all these questions by creating a multi-scale atlas of typologies and case studies, from Eden to the future of Madrid, so that all audiences can learn from the past and project themselves into the future through the present. The city of the future will be a solidary ecosystem of sciences and technologies, designed and represented by architecture, to shape a new culture that can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Global policies and agendas, local examples and models, technologies, cooks, farmers and livestock breeders, the new economies, works of art, or production and transport systems; actors and projects will join hands through architecture in what was once the Garden of the King, the Huerta de San Juan at the Buen Retiro Palace: CentroCentro, Cibeles Palace.

Curated by Jorge López Conde.