Image: MACBA Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art
The Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) is presenting Anna Moreno’s ‘The Third Twist’, a video installation that examines an unfinished architectural project by Ricardo Bofill and the collapse of utopian hopes associated with 1970s architecture. The exhibition remains on view in Barcelona through 28 September as part of Barcelona 2026 World Capital of Architecture.
‘The Third Twist’ is described as the final chapter in a trilogy through which Moreno draws on Bofill’s unfinished and abandoned projects. Rather than treating those unrealised schemes simply as architectural failures, the project uses them to question the political and social aspirations embedded in the utopian architecture of the 1970s.
The installation revisits Bofill’s proposal for a nomadic settlement in the Algerian desert. The project’s setting is central to Moreno’s approach: an imagined settlement in the Sahara becomes a point of contact between modernist ambition, the limits of implementation and the historical conditions surrounding architectural projects conceived during the period.
MACBA’s description frames the work around the contradictions of a generation that moved from dreaming to confronting reality. Moreno’s project therefore focuses not only on what was designed, but also on what remains after a future has been imagined and left unrealised. In accompanying material, the artist presents the work through the question of what becomes of futures that were imagined but never came to pass.
The exhibition forms part of Barcelona’s 2026 programme as World Capital of Architecture, placing a contemporary art project within a citywide focus on architecture. At MACBA, Moreno’s installation connects the museum’s exhibition programme with a broader examination of architecture as an idea, a social project and a record of aspirations that may remain incomplete.
The museum’s related public material also identifies the Algerian desert project as a place where the modern dream confronts colonial legacies and ruins. Guided visits to ‘The Third Twist’ are listed for Sundays at 12.30pm, with artists and researchers Albert Gironès, Ana Gnagui and Eva Paià. The visits have free admission with a museum ticket. ‘The Third Twist’ is on view at MACBA in Barcelona until 28 September.
