BARCELONA.- The absence of documentary evidence on Méchraâ Houari Boumédienne, a nomadic settlement project in the Algerian desert designed by architect Ricardo Bofill, is the starting point for the centrepiece of The Third Twist, presented by artist Anna Moreno at MACBA. The work is the final instalment in a trilogy, which forms part of the MACBA Collection, in which Moreno draws inspiration from Bofill's unfinished or abandoned projects to question the utopian architecture of the 1970s. The Third Twist is on display at MACBA from 5 February to 28 September 2026, on the occasion of Barcelona's World Architecture Capital. Hiuwai Chu oversees the project as MACBA's head of exhibitions, together with assistant curator Zaida Trallero.

The exhibition is structured around three elements. The main piece is the film The Terminal Beach, which viewers can watch from a dune created for the occasion that replicates the desert dunes where the film is set. At one end of the room, two screens project two videos that interact with and draw on another little-known project from Bofill's utopian period: The City in Space, which was to be built in Moratalaz (Madrid). The final element is a vinyl overlay on the glass window connecting the room to the street.

Bofill and the end of the utopian dream

Architecture is one of the elements present in Anna Moreno's projects: ‘It is a discipline that projects the future and allows me to imagine how we live in this architecture’. The artist admires Bofill, whom she highlights as representing the contradictions of the end of modernity. ‘He is one of those architects who dreamed of utopia in the 1970s and, with the turn of the decade, when he was already an internationally recognised architect, changed his ideology. He represents the paradigm shift and the end of the utopian dream'.

Throughout her career, Moreno has investigated projects from Bofill's utopian period that clash with reality and ultimately end very differently from what was originally planned. The City in Space (1970) in Moratalaz is the central theme of The Drowned Giant (2017), Walden 7 (1975) in Sant Just Desvern is the subject of Billennium (2018), and the agricultural village Houari Boumédienne (1979) in the Algerian desert is the starting point for The Terminal Beach (2024) and the symbolic conclusion to the trilogy Moreno has been working on since 2017. Bofill's architecture is the common thread, and the dystopian stories of James Graham Ballard, an exponent of the so-called new wave of English science fiction, are a constant reference in the work.

The Third Twist: exhibition works

The Terminal Beach

In The Terminal Beach, the artist uses the road movie to document the current state of a nomadic settlement built in 1979 by Bofill in the Algerian Sahara, commissioned by then-President Houari Boumédienne. The construction falls within the architect's utopian period, when his studio, RBTA, was an amalgam of architects, poets and painters. What was supposed to be a compound built according to modern criteria was ultimately left unfinished, revealing the tension between the dreams of that era and the reality of modern colonial legacies.

Moreno discovered the project by chance after seeing some images published on the architecture studio's website, but the lack of documentation and references piqued her curiosity. The artist embarked on a trip to the desert where she confirmed that the settlement existed and was inhabited.

The film The Terminal Beach – the exhibition's main piece – co-directed with Brazilian filmmaker Bernardo Zanotta, is the result of her stay at the settlement. The fiction is created in the post-production room, that is, during the film's editing phase, with the protagonist being a fictional photographer commissioned to photograph the ruins of the settlement. Through this character, the film questions the Western view of the desert and criticises its appropriation as a space to be colonised, a place for the extraction of resources or, at that time, a showcase for Western architects to design projects according to European standards.

Moreno learned that this settlement, near the city of Béchar and the Moroccan border, was a pilot project commissioned by the Algerian government that was to be replicated many times in other parts of the country. Ultimately, the project was abandoned, even by Bofill himself.

The screening of the film is accompanied by a dune produced for the occasion, which forms part of the installation where visitors can sit. The rear of the dune is open, revealing its interior, reminiscent of the film sets of Bernardo Bertolucci, who makes a surprise cameo in the film; a device used by the artist to reinforce the idea of architecture as a stage set.

A Question of Re-entry

A promotional happening that ended with the cancellation of the project

At one end of the room, two screens place the spectator in the same scene, albeit with two different perspectives. This piece, A Question of Re-entry, refers to the experience of physically or metaphorically revisiting spaces or moments from the past through the lens of the present and its conditioning factors.

In this case, the piece is connected to the work The Drowned Giant, where the artist reconstructs the happening that Bofill organised in 1970 in Moratalaz to promote the sale of flats in the project The City in Space. It had a counterproductive effect: at the end of Franco's regime, the authorities blocked the project. Utopia once again collided with reality. Despite its cancellation, The City in Space became a point of reference for the time and appeared in prestigious magazines such as L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui. However, there are practically no records of the happening itself.

In 2017, after exhaustive documentation work, Moreno recreated the happening in a vacant lot in Moratalaz, near where the original took place. During her research, she found a Super 8 video with original images of the preparations. This video belongs to the artist Daniel Argimon, who created the monumental paintings seen in the small fragment that the artist shows on one of the small screens at MACBA. The images are from a subjective camera recording the preparations for the happening on Super 8. The shot was recorded from a motorbike. Moreno contrasts this shot with her own reverse shot, recorded with a mobile phone in 2017, in which the artist is seen as a passenger on a motorbike with a Super 8 camera in her hand. The piece offers two subjective views of the same event and, at the same time, highlights the passage of time with the texture of the images: the grain of Super 8 contrasted with digital video.

Here, once again, Moreno questions the consequences of revisiting, from certain paradigms, ideas of a future that never was, and points to the danger of allowing oneself to be overcome by nostalgia.

Untitled (Mercy)

The final element of the installation is a vinyl overlay on the large glass window connecting the exhibition hall with Montalegre Street. The vinyl features the basic architectural motifs of the Chapel of Mercy (just in front of the building) and plays with a range of blue and terracotta colours typical of Bofill's work and of the Mediterranean.

The intervention on the vinyl evokes the architectural legacy of the Raval neighbourhood and also plays with the idea of inside/outside the museum, nodding to the ongoing debate about the role of the museum in the neighbourhood.

In short, The Third Twist offers an immersive experience based on architecture, while also incorporating a strong artistic component that invites political and social reflection.

Anna Moreno (1984) is a visual artist who works between Barcelona and The Hague. Her practice explores how fiction, cinematic montage, and speculative thinking can reactivate histories of architecture and collective imagination. Through films, installations, and collaborative processes, she reflects on how societies construct and project their futures. Moreno has been an artist-in-residence at various international institutions, including the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (Netherlands), SASG (Seoul), HIAP (Helsinki), Salzamt (Linz), and Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Biella). She has exhibited at MOCAB (Belgrade), SAS Geumcheon (Seoul), the Fundació Joan Miró, and 1646 (The Hague), among others. She is also a lecturer and publishes essays on art, politics, and architecture in specialized journals such as CARTHA.