South Korea's Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism just announced that Thomas Heatherwick will be the General Director of its fifth iteration next year.
Billed as Asia's biggest architecture biennial, the 2025 program seeks to explore "how to make buildings and cities radically more joyful and engaging," a mantra Heatherwick has been championing with his Humanise campaign.
"We are honored and thrilled by this appointment to curate our first Biennale," Heatherwick responded. "There are over 300 biennales taking place around the world today. But the original ambition to use them as vehicles for debate and engagement with the public, too easily gets lost in professional echo-chambers, which most ordinary people don’t engage with."
"We plan to turn the concept of a biennale inside out and create a big, full-throttle conversation with Seoulites. We want to get to the heart of what matters to them and their city and help make new buildings in Seoul radically more human," he added finally.
Just last week, Heatherwick Studio emerged as the winning team in an international competition in the country to transform the artificial Nodeul Island near the center of Seoul into a public park. Another proposal for a leaf-shaped public waterfront development in the city was released in early 2022.
The fifth Seoul Biennale is scheduled to run from September 1st through October 31st next year.
4 Comments
We want to get to the heart of what matters to them and their city and help make new buildings in Seoul radically more human.
Why radically human, and what on earth does he mean? Go to his humanise site and you won't learn anything significant at all about humanity or architecture—or anything. There is no empirical study, no historical review, no cultural examination, no critical study whatsoever.
My greatest regret in the island project is that Seoul didn't use a Korean designer sensitive to the people, the culture, to contemporary trends in Korea. It is a significant spot, and it provided Seoul a chance to show itself to the world. Instead, they selected a funky generic Heatherwick Island (TM). I guess there's status in this. New York, after all has one, and I fear we'll see more of these monstrosities pop up around the world.
Yes, I need to leave this alone. . . .
Heatherwick is hugely popular in East Asia - among developers and government officials. He's the Kaws of architecture. Every city wants one.
Basically, you know what you're getting when ordering a Heatherwick. No surprises, good or bad. Pick a design from a catalogue and his company will deliver said design.
I'm curious what cultural and architecture critics and historians will make of all of this years from now. We're in an odd and mushy phase.
Wondering where this catalogue is. Sounds interesting and expensive and antithetical to the off-the-shelf catalogue concept.
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