The theme chosen by exhibition director Kazuyo Sejima is "people meet in architecture."
The theme chosen by exhibition director Kazuyo Sejima is "people meet in architecture."
The idea is to help people relate to architecture, help architecture relate to people and help people relate to themselves. There will be independent spaces for each architect or each theme, which means that the participants will be their own curators. In this way contributors will design their own space and make presentations that consider the experience of the visitor both physically and conceptually. It will be a series of spaces rather than a series of objects. The Independent
5 Comments
interesting... so - architecture about spatial experience? are we seeing a retreat from the object?
This seems rather irrelevant to me, especially in light of what the Rotterdam Biennale is about. Experience? Oh great... Back to phenomenology? It's a retreat from everything. Soothing in times like these, yet useless, boring, toothless... etc etc etc
I took the description not to be a return to experience, as in phenomenology, but more as a focus on how architecture facilitates human social experience and social relations. Many artists have been dealing with this idea in the last 2 decades (its been called Relational Aesthetics or Social Practice) since architects seemed to have primarily turned to form making, or "form finding" in their practice. Even more recently the focus seems to have jumped from form to infrastructure. Phenomenology tended to deal more with experience as related to material, light, form, etc... how we respond to physical things.
For me, its seems not only relevant, but refreshing and very much needed in contemporary architecture practice. After the failures of modernism's "social engineering", architecture that attempts to facilitate social exchange has been somewhat taboo, or just passé. However it is something that architects must understand and that architecture must acknowledge as a fundamental part of human experience that is to be strengthened. My point is that social relations should have equal consideration in architectural design as compared to formal or infrastructural concerns.
However, It does seem from the brief description in the article, especially when compared to the in-depth interview on the Rotterdam Biennale, that the plan Sejima has announced is sort of half-baked. Maybe it feels too open-ended from a western perspective. I am very interested to see how the program develops and how the architects will respond to the challenge. Perhaps the exhibition itself could end up being boring, but I think the challenge she has presented is interesting in that it asks us to evaluate it on different terms than previous exhibitions.
the quote from the independent is a little truncated. after reading the biennale's website, it seems like the theme aims towards what doug suggested in his comment...
http://www.labiennale.org/en/news/outline.html
lame...is that really all the best of our profession has to offer? if so i need to get out of this profession really quick.
people meet in architecture,
great,
fish piss in water.
dogs shit on grass.
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