Interview to Pilar Navarro, director of Construmat 2013

In 2013, Construmat presents like a fair that has an enormous value added for display units and visitors. We have designed a contest adjusted to the current needs of the industry of the construction of our country, with a new format of living room that sustenta in three big pillars: the Forum Contract, with the presence of more than a hundred of constructive projects of emergent countries that come to Barcelona to buy material and processes; the Building Solutions World Congress, a congress that wants to give real solutions to the challenges that pose the architecture and the construction of our days; and the Innovation Center, in which they will present in new novelty materials before his commercialisation. Besides, we have a Program of Buyers with more than 2.500 international visitors that travel to our country with the firm intention to do business. I consider that we have seated the bases for a new Construmat, a different living room for a different sector.

The sector of the construction is very wide and no only circumscribes to the real-estate field, in spite of that this segment was with which more identifies . It is evident that the current situation of the market of the industry of the Spanish construction does not have at all that see with the one of those years. The living room gave answer to a market in ebullición, increasing his number of display units and of square metres to the same rhythm that grew the sector. That period has happened to the history and everything seems to indicate that we will not go back to live it. Thus, we have wanted to design a Construmat that was an useful tool for the companies of the construction of our country, opening, especially, the doors of access to the most dynamic markets of the world as they are some countries of Latin America or of the Maghreb. In fact, the Forum Contract has projects that add a potential investment of 30.000 million euros.

The rehabilitation is one of the segments that the majority of the experts consider that it can be an alternative so that the sector initiate the senda of the economic reflation. And Construmat like this considers it from does already long. In fact, in the Self-evident Construmat, presented with reason of the past edition of the contest, requested to the Authorities the set up of measures that promoted this activity. And in this edition, the rehabilitation will be one of the thematic axles of the Building Solutions World Congress, in which they will give to know examples of cases in which political of rehabilitation and reform have had a big effect in cities like Barcelona or Marseilles.

Treats of another of the big subjects that Construmat along his path, has analysed and debated. And in this occasion, could not be less. We englobamos the energetic efficiency inside the field of the sustainability, a concept without which no longer could understand neither the architecture neither the activity constructor. In this sense, will have two days that treat on energetic efficiency. The day 22 May, the Catalan Institute of the Power (ICAEN) organises a day on Energetic Certification and Rehabilitation of Buildings, and the day 23 May will take place, to charge of the Department of Territory and Sustainability of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the presentation of the Program MARIE of the European Union, a project that pursues to improve the energetic renewal in nueve countries of the Mediterranean region.

Construmat Is the evento in which the main agents of the sector launch his novelties. And we, like organisers, also have wanted to do it. In this edition of 2013, have the Construmat Innovation Center, an initiative that, under the coordination of the Institute of the Technology of the Construction of Catalonia (ITeC), will present new materials and construction solutions developed by 12 centres of international investigation. Formworks with fabrics in wooden place or ironinging, concrete that explain in his composition with bacteria that regenerate the small cracks that can produce , insulating foams manufactured with the bark of the trees, mortars of aerogel in which they combine cement and methanol… Are some of the new materials that will be presented before, even, to go in in his phase of commercialisation.

Fira Of Barcelona is an institution that bets by the internationalisation from his starts and no like an alternative in time of crisis but like a signal of identity. And this have moved it already does years to the living rooms that organise, since we live in a world interrelated and globalizado. The industry of the construction had not looked further of our borders, because it did not need it. Now, given the circumstances, seems clear that the internationalisation is the big road so that the sector go out advance. To be able to facilitate the access to these markets, have turned us into the hub international of the construction, attracting to governments like the one of Brazil or the one of Cuba so that they present here his wallet of projects, to architects of the prestige of the Group Arditti of Mexico or groups constructors like Odebrecht of Brazil or Hotchief of Germany. We think that the Forum Contract or the Program of VIP Buyers are two big contributions of the living room so that our companies access to new external markets.

Tremendously positive. Thanks to having taken the case and have us presented in those countries where there are real possibilities to do business, have designed the Forum Contract, an initiative that does not offer any another fair of the construction of the world. The minister of the Cities of Brazil, Aguinaldo Ribeiro, will chair the Brazilian business mission that will visit Construmat to present in Europe the second phase of the program ‘Minha House, Minha Life' that has like aim finish with the favelas of the main cities of the country and that contemplates edificar two million houses, of which one million will be sought-after here. Besides, an official delegation of the Government of Cuba, integrated by representatives of the Ministry of the Construction, the Office of the Historian of The Habana, the Group Loge and the Company of Projects of Inner Atrium of the Ministry of culture, will give to know the projects of construction that have to llevar in the next months in the island and for which need to hire all type of materials and construction solutions. They are only two examples of what have achieved to put to disposal of the display units and visitors of Construmat 2013.

The Building Solutions World Congress is another of the big appeals of Construmat 2013. Under the coordination of the architect Jordi Farrando, this congress characterises of the rest by his transversal character. And it is that the projects that will present under the axles of the sustainability, the rehabilitation and the innovation will be tackled of way interrelated. With the participation of 65 speakers, the Building Solutions World Congress will allow us see that the world does not finish here and that can go on doing things with practical cases developed by architects like the Turkish Emre Arolat, prize Aga Khan of architecture in 2010 and responsible of several projects in Turkey; the Italian Stefano Boeri, co-author of the reform of the ports of Génova and Marseilles and current councillor of Culture of the City council of Milan; the Mexican Mauritius Rocha, awarded in two occasions in the Biennial of architecture of Mexico; the installed American in Venezuela Alfredo Brillembourg, winner of the Lion of Gold of the Biennial of Venecia of 2012, or the Chilean Germán of Sol, author of the pavilion of Chile of the Expo 92 of Seville.

In the first place, will say him that in those countries in which the things go well, anybody poses the feasibility or no of the fairs. But, shelving this consideration, a Construmat like which present is more necessary that never for those companies that look for how go out of the crisis. Construmat Opens them the door to go in in new markets, bring projects, new materials… Our living room, the only international of which organises in our country, has wanted to face the current challenge, following one of the maximum of Fira of Barcelona, that that says that we are always at the side of the companies and of the sectors with which have links. And therefore we have put us in his leather to design an useful living room that answer to his interests, needs and interests. I create, sincerely, that have designed a living room adjusted to the reality of a sector that precise real solutions.

Can not him advance figures. But yes I can him ensure that those living rooms of does some years have happened to the history… by the own reality of the sector. Those figures of display units, square metres and visitors will not go back to repeat.

As that that Construmat mastodóntico that collapsed the city and that generated more than 200 million euros in economy induced is thing of the past. Recent past, but past. Because the sector no longer is the same because the industry of the Spanish construction is living a very hard process of reconversion. Therefore, Construmat has adapted to the current reality so much in format as in size.

Would like me that Construmat 2013, that celebrates of the 21 to 24 May in the enclosure of Big Via, went the starting point of a new living room for a new sector. I invite them to all to be important part of this challenge. Do together the Construmat of the 21st century.