500 works of art and documents.

Juan Navarro Baldeweg (Santander, 1939) has managed to balance his work as an artist with his work as an artist throughout his career, achieving recognition in both disciplines and being distinguished with the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas (1990), the Heinrich Tessenow Medal (1998), the Medalla de Oro al Mérito en las Bellas Artes (2007) and the Premio Nacional de Arquitectura (2014), among many others.

In 1970, he received a grant from the Juan March Foundation to travel to the United States and study at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the guidance of the artist and designer György Kepes, who invited him to continue his research there between 1971 and 1975.

Interested in making invisible physical phenomena —equilibrium, gravity, magnetism, etc.— visible, during his time at MIT he developed pieces such as The Column and the Weight, Cámara oscura, Tide, Five Units of Light or Scores, as well as his interiors, installations made up of several pieces which evoke, reproduce or are associated with these natural phenomena. He demonstrated the results of his research in a traveling exhibition in 1973, in «Asterisk. Lobby 7» (1974) and in «Projects Inc. Videotapes» (1975), all organized by MIT. He also designed the poster for the John Cage tribute concert at Harvard University (1974).

Archivo Lafuente preserves more than 500 items, including originals, drawings, collages, photographs, negatives, photolithographs, posters and prints from this period of Juan Navarro’s career.