INSTITUT FÜR KUNST UND ARCHITEKTUR
ADP ANALOGUE DIGITAL PRODUCTION CMT CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY
www.akbild.ac.at/ika
ESC ECOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY CULTURAL HERITAGE
INSTITUTE REVIEW FOR ART SUMMER AND 2019 ARCHITECTURE
ADP Wolfgang Tschapeller Werner Skvara Antonia Autischer Vincent Behrens Daniel Bracher Sidika Cupuroglu Alexander Czernin David Degasper Alice Hoffmann Tuvana Beliz Kankalli Ji Yun Lee Matthew Peate Emilia Piatkowska Lisa Prossegger Normunds Püne Moritz Schafschetzy Helena Schenavsky Julian Schönborn Salome Schramm Sebastian Seib Johanna Syré Matias Tapia Johannes Wiener Julia Wiesiollek Catherine Zesch Reviewers and guests Barbara Imhof Valerie Messini Walter Prenner Thomas Romm John Zissovici
How to live in an air handler. This sounds a bit like an instruction for use. And that’s intentional. It could also sound like a cynical remark about our technologydriven environment. That’s not the intention. The title is derived from a series of experiences of the atmosphere: again, perhaps some of them may sound like cynical remarks. But again: that’s not how they are meant. They are experiences that led me to think about air flows and breathing. They include the waiting rooms in the Nikola Tesla Airport in Belgrade, which give you the feeling that you have entered the antechamber of a turbine. Then there’s a childhood experiment: You breathe in deeply 20 times, then, from behind you, a second person suddenly compresses your chest. This results briefly in unconsciousness. Or diving. Surfacing is delayed, metre by metre, until you shoot upwards, open your mouth wide and gulp for air. Then, an installation by Carsten Höller in the Hayward Gallery in London that lets visitors feel their way through the twists and turns of a dreadfully long ventilation system. Or the technical ventilation concept for the Mui Ho Fine Arts Library in Cornell, which we1 designed: books and readers are placed in a slow, constant flow of fresh air in an open space. And Erik Olsen’s 2 tale about an attempt to construct a place with the purest air amidst the contami nated air of Peking. Air-handling systems have to do with breathing. For buildings air handling plants are like lungs. Buildings that are not cross ventilated perish, irrespective of whether they are naturally or mechanically
ventilated. How long can a human being survive without air? The record is said to be 20 minutes. I can only hold my breath for a maximum count of 60. How long can a building do without air? In relation to the capacities of their organs people have penetrated too far into the depths of buildings. For people air-handling plants are like external lungs, like technical extensions of the organic bronchia, exo-bronchia, so to speak. With the help of these exo-bronchia people can access and use buildings of greater depth. They help to bring the correct air mix to the blood and air barriers that form the alveoli or air sacs, where carbon dioxide and oxygen can pass freely between the inside of the body and an exterior space that has penetrated deep inside the body.3 How often do oxygen and carbon dioxide pass the triple-layer blood and air barriers that surround the alveolar space? Around 20 000 times daily, in and out. In the process around 12m³ of air are moved, a space, for example, that measures 2.4 metres in width, 2 metres in length and is 2.5 metres high, that is to say approximately the size of Le Corbusier’s Cabanon in Roquebrune, 365 times a year into and out of the body. What do we inhale? Simply the air, the gases and the pollutants that form the atmosphere that surround us. This is, theoretically, made up of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% inert gases such as helium, argon and then 0,04% carbon dioxide, methane and hydrogen. And what do we exhale? Roughly the same, but the proportion of oxygen to carbon dioxide is different. Of the 21% oxygen inhaled only 17% comes back, while the proportion of exhaled carbon dioxide rises to 4%, i.e. increases 100-fold. But don’t worry, breathe out calmly: the exhaled carbon dioxide does not increase the proportion of greenhouse gas in the environment, it is part of the carbon dioxide cycle. Are exo-bronchia and exo-organs comparable with an image that Reyner Banham attributes to Phillip Johnson? As the prototype for his Glass House in New Canaan Johnson insistently invoked the image of a burned-out township in New England in which the external walls were so completely consumed by fire that only the servant parts of the building, such as the brick floor slabs and the chimneys, were left. Or could the exposed veins and arteries of Armilla be read as exo-organs of this kind? Armilla, the city with no walls, no floors and no ceilings but only a mesh of water pipes into which people are woven? Or is it Buckminster Fuller´s “Standard-of-Living-Package“4, which breathes out warm air along the ground, broadcasts music and grills well-matured proteins under infra-red lighting? Phillip Johnson´s burned-out New England town, Calvino’s Armilla, Buckmister Fuller´s Standard-of-Living-Package and Dallegret´s designs all produce images of situations, places to stay and towns that do not consist of buildings and shells but of “organs” and “equipment”. These are positioned freely in the continuum of the atmosphere in order to produce local places with a certain consistency of atmosphere, places where we would like to stay, at least for a certain time, with all our friends. The alternative design comes from Constant. An alternative world that encircles the globe, a second earth’s surface
20 metres above the ground, completely detached from the atmosphere, with an artificial climate independent of the atmosphere, with independent lighting and creative games. Wolfgang Tschapeller Design Studio BArch2
→ fig. 4 / p. 7 → fig. 13 / pp. 10, 11 → fig. 27 / pp. 16, 17 → fig. 28 / p. 17 1 TWA 2 Eric Olsen, Transsolar N.Y. 3 Prometheus, Lernatlas der Anatomie, Stuttgart / New York 2009 and Wikipedia 191120-30 4 Reyner Banham, Francois Dallegret, A Home is not a House, 1965
HTC HISTORY THEORY CRITICISM GLC GEOGRAPHY LANDSCAPES CITIES
(…) // The traditional art object / be it painting, a sculpture / a piece of architecture / can no longer be seen as an isolated unit / but must be considered within the context of changes in time and space / moving physically and percepted visually / in all directions of environment / be it man-built or part of nature. / Thus we are stimulated constantly by split seconds / physically or emotionally with a world / already existent or in the making. / Object and environment remain / constantly one in unison with past and future. / Consequently the environment becomes / equally as important as the object / if not more so / because the object breathes with the surroundings / as we do. // No object of nature or of art can ever exist / or has ever existed without environment. / As a matter of fact / the object itself can expand to a degree / where it becomes its own environment. / (…) Frederick Kiesler, The Correalism of the Plastic Arts, 1960 6
RETHINKING KIESLER ESC Hannes Stiefel Luciano Parodi Veronika Behawetz Philipp Behawy Jakob Czinger Martin Eichler Yoko Gwen Halbwidl Oana-Alexandra Ionescu Alma Kelderer Dila Kirmizitoprak Martin Kohlberger Diana Konovalova Nils Frederik Neuböck Anna Orbanic Lisa Theresa Penz Zoe Jacqueline Pianaro Hannah Rade Fabian Schwarz Magdalena Stainer Carla Veltman Valeriia Malysh Reviewers and guests Kathrin Aste Edward Broeders David Gissen Valerie Messini Thomas Romm Karolin Schmidbaur Lisa Schmidt-Colinet Gerd Zillner John Zissovici
(…) / We are making the catastrophic error of / basing our wisdom on a past, its facts / questionable indeed, while in truth / the present is a marriage of the nuclei / of the bearers of the past and the / standards of the future, simply because / no future can evolve that has not its real roots / in the values of the past (no matter how far apast). / We work with myths of facts instead of / with facts of a myth. // Events and memory of events are / continually transformed by the present / to procreate the future. This is the / correalism of nature, and it is / a pluralistic genesis. And it is not / a monotheistic configuration but a unity / of a constantly changing diversity. // (…) Frederick Kiesler, The Correalism of Nature, 1960 5
Rethinking Kiesler is an ambitious endeavour, and it is complex purely in consideration of the vast range of his work in various fields: architecture, industrial design, the visual and performing arts, exhibition design, teaching, theoretical writing and literary reflection – the latter at times affecting disciplines of the natural sciences as well as metaphysical realms. The studio explored all of Frederick Kiesler’s documented projects in order to get an idea of the design culture that arose in interaction with his correalist theories. What is decisive for these theories are the interactions between the so-called human, natural and technological environments, as well as their understanding of reality – and of the forms in which reality visually presents itself – as the result of a constant battle for predominance between integrative and disintegrative forces. A contemporary reading of these writings enables us to recognize Kiesler as a staunch practitioner and missionary of ecological thinking – a form of ecologi cal thinking by design. The first rediscovery of Kiesler’s work (by architects) was a rediscovery through space. The second one could happen via the environment. It is surprising that the “environmentalist” Kiesler chose clearly defined boundaries for most of his “ecological case studies”. With his design proposals, he worked, generally speaking, in quite small scales, and his architectural models were presented in a way that would, in a first reading, almost unavoidably position them in the world of objects. And yet it is one of the insights of the studio that it is not implicitly a matter of the object, but rather of its impact on, and reciprocity with, its environments. Thus, to put it differently, it is a matter of the object and the form in which it presents itself, since it sets the orientation of the impacts and reciproc ities mentioned. The studio aimed to approach and test Kiesler’s correalist visions in various scales on random sites throughout the city of Vienna; to apply and pursue them by the design of architectural structures that, supported by hybrid programming, themselves install a series of ecologies that interact in many ways with their surroundings. This studio epitomized an ESC exploration that tacitly began some years ago, and needs to be continued – endlessly. Hannes Stiefel, Luciano Parodi
Kiesler’s concept of ‘endlessness’ was in essence an expression of the continu ity of every point and object in the world with what operates beyond it, in fields both proximate and remote. (…) The doctrine of Correalism projects a seamless ecological vortex that permits no essential division between worldly objects, their structural deployments, or the motives, habits and desires that brought them to be. Sanford Kwinter, Correalist Vision, 20157
THE GENERATOR OF THE HUMAN The Generator of the Human is an inter vention located in the 7th district of Vienna, a conglomeration of different systems: three greenhouses, a winery and an organ factory, triggering one another’s existence. The idea was an atmosphere so precisely planned that the technological environment – or in this case even the artificial environment – manages to overcome the limits of the human environment itself, making it possible to print human-like organs and skin tissues in a human health centre hosting people in need of transplants. The building follows the patient’s path of health, starting from the lowest point underground, where the winery is located. The patient works his way up through the organ factory to the third and last greenhouse, enjoying it as part of the rehabilitation area and phase. The healing process itself starts in the stem cell extraction room, where the patient’s cells are collected, while a personalized 3D print of the transplant made from hydrogel is developed and combined with the extracted cells inside incubators, simulating the perfect conditions of the human body. The skins of the organ-like rooms are made of reinforced foil with different transparencies and double membranes, divided into different sections. The overall construction is secured by a hanging system of tension ropes, strapping the inflatables to the structure of the existing Gründerzeit building that hosts them. Meanwhile, the largest greenhouse with a temperature of 8-12° is used for the cultivation of vines in capsules of hydrogel. By the use of gravity, the grapes are transported through tubes to the winery, where they are crushed, pressed and fermented for the extraction of alcohol and the production of medicine and narcotic gas, necessary for the operation. The fresh air produced by the greenhouses is also transported into the organ factory and used especially during surgeries. Alma Kelderer Design Studio BArch4
→ fig. 2, p. 5 → fig. 3, p. 6 → fig. 14 / pp. 10, 11 Special thanks to: Gerd Zillner, Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation Vienna 5 Inside the Endless House – Art, People and Architecture: A Journal, by Frederick Kiesler, Simon and Schuster, New York 1964, p.144-145 6 Ibid., p. 151-152 7 Sanford Kwinter: Correalist Vision, in: Endless Kiesler, edited by Klaus Bollinger, Florian Medicus and the Austrian Frederick and Lillian Kiesler Private Foundation, Birkhäuser / Edition Angewandte, Basel 2015, p. 215-216 / 217
REVIEW SUMMER 2019
GLC Alessandra Cianchetta Daniela Herold Pia Bauer Florian Valentin Berrar Daniel Binder Dominik Briechle Ana Maria Chiriac Daron Chiu Diana Cuc Leah Dorner Katharina Eder Ida Fröhlich Nuria Lucie Keeve Leonie Link Maria Teodora Marta Nyima Murry Nikolaus Podlaha Lucas Reisigl Hans Schmidt Kenal Riddhi Shah Sophia Stemshorn Jiri Tomicek Naitik Mauktik Trivedi Luna Villanueva-Pangaud Reviewers and guests Christina Condak Antje Lehn Martin Janda Sissy Janda Lisa Schmidt-Colinet Francesco Ragazzi Ellis Woodman
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as a setting for art exhibitions. It took a stance by claiming that the museum as a heterotopia has become obsolete, and by putting forward public space as an alternative to white cube formats. Through real interventions, “On Resources” explored the spatial conditions of several spots in the city, and the possibilities that might emerge by using existing structures instead of producing new buildings. Out of a series of places identified that offered the conditions to host an exhibition, the project concentrated on three sites: the basketball infrastructure at Bennoplatz in the 8th district, the pedestrian and bicycle underpass on Löwengasse in the 3rd district, and a staircase that publicly connects three city levels, located on Althanstrasse in the 9th district. Three differently composed art exhibitions were organized in these spots. They were sourced from art produced in the context of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. An open call encouraged students from other classes, like painting, performance, sculpture and video, to participate. Their work was arranged based on the spatial specificities that had been identified, for example the conditions of the wall surface, the lighting situation or hanging facilities. Depending on these, small additional features were designed. Together, they activated these resources for a short time, testing the effects of public space on art and vice versa, and raising awareness of the value and fragility of public space in the present development of cities. → fig.17 / p. 12
The studio investigated the interdependency between various art objects and the spaces hosting them. In the beginning, we focused on the rich terrain of Viennese art spaces. We explored classical iconic museum buildings, galleries and art clusters, where several institutions have settled in a neighbourhood to complement one another, as well as spaces that are temporarily used for art exhibitions, functioning as activators for future urban developments or transformations. By analysing and drawing these spaces, we learned about their composition and arrangement, their orchestration and the organisation embodied in their rules of accessibility and circulation.
“Art Market” a project by Ana Maria Chiriac and Marta Teodora, also dealt with the embedment of art in the public terrain. The point of departure was research on the Viktor Adler Market situated in the upper part of the multi-cultural district of Favoriten. It is a vivid, popular and highly frequented place. What if art spaces were integrated in environments that we use for activities of our daily life, like shopping? What if both programmes existed spatially beside each other, and what would be the benefit of this juxtaposition? The project proposed a transformation of the current market stand structure, developing different strategies for how art could be introduced. Starting from empty walls, rooftops and unused spaces between two stands, where temporary installations can be placed, this can extend to long-term reallocations of empty stalls, as well as larger-scale reconstruction. It is a modular system that can be adapted to the requirements of the market. Besides the main idea that the new art space should exceed the boundaries of a classical art space, a further intention was to put emphasis on its social aspects.
→ fig. 5 / p. 7
→ fig.12 / p. 9
Next, we focused our attention on a range of assembled artworks spanning genres, periods, media and themes. This extensive collection provided the basis for developing a series of curatorial concepts and, in parallel, for designing exhibition spaces implementing these concepts. The task was to place them within the Viennese context. As there was no given site and no further requirements, it was a challenge to define the parameters and urban conditions that corresponded best to the curatorial concept. It could be that the new premises would work as extensions of existing art spaces, or as parasites occupying unused places or vacant building structures; they could even be arranged as a sequence of solitary units spreading into the surroundings. The essential questions were how the spaces that were developed intervened in the existing fabric, and what spatial characteristics and qualities the implementation generated.
“Distribution of Perception” is a careful attempt by Jiri Tomicek to construct an art space through a kind of ‘cartographic essay’. It was conceived during a visit to the town of Panajachel in Guatemala, while staying at the homes and working in the studios of two artists, Elisabeth Wild and Vivian Suter, over the course of seven days. The content originated in direct relation to individual biographies, daily dialogues and interactions, as well as personal observations. The project consists of a map, a video sequence and a performed narration, accompanied by a slideshow of photographic material. The map represents a general layout of the area retrieved from memory, a spatial inventory of particular objects. The video sequence depicts an endless walk through the gardens and driveways of the estates. In addition, it is also played in reverse and subtly slowed down by a factor of 1.5. This manipulation allows for the space to be measured differently, with new frames that cannot be anticipated in advance, but rather emerge and strike the viewer from the back. “Distribution of Perception” constructs a dialogue between what is said and what is seen, what is presented and what is represented. It navigates between privacy and publicity, intimacy and exposure, home and public institution. It seeks to become a catalyst for going beyond the established confines of spaces in which art usually happens.
What is the relationship of an art space to the urban context in which it is embedded? How should exhibition spaces be designed to enable the display of different formats, and which exhibition concepts allow for environments that offer a fresh perception and dialogue between the artwork, its observer and the place where it is installed?
We speculated about what would happen if an art space were not a mono-functional facility anymore, if and how it was possible to explore overlaps with other private or public facilities. And what if the layout and appearance of art spaces were experienced as art itself? Do they need a visual impact, or can they perform as hidden attractions, as well? Is it still necessary to define physical boundaries that limit the art area? If yes, what do they look like and how do they influence the relationship between the visitors and the objects? The project “On Resources” by Pia Bauer and Ida Fröhlich responded to the questions raised by focusing on public space
Alessandra Cianchetta, Daniela Herold Design Studio BArch6
→ fig. 22, 23 / p. 14
Otto Neurath – were to become standard. A majority of the words used in Rudolf Carnap’s dissertation Der Raum and in László Moholy-Nagy’s Vom Material zur Architektur would be omitted. How, then, should we talk about the various understandings and perceptions of space? The problem of language was also the topic of Gloria Hinterleitner’s contribution “Letters to Friedl Dicker-Brandeis” about the life of the Viennese artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, who became an early Bauhaus student (she went to Weimar with Johannes Itten in 1919). In the letters she wrote to friends, she reflected on art as a tool of expression. After the Nazis deported her to Theresienstadt and later to Auschwitz, where she was murdered, she consistently sought to use art as a means to survive until she was silenced. Gloria also started to write letters to her, in which she tried to reflect on the unspoken words of Friedl.
HTC Angelika Schnell Maximilian Aelfers Joseph Eckhart Christina Ehrmann Elisabeth Fölsche Gloria Hinterleitner Naomi Mittempergher Reviewers and guests Maria Auböck Christina Condak Waltraud Indrist Christina Jauernik Károly Kókai Antje Lehn Lisa Schmidt-Colinet Roswitha Schuller Andreas Spiegl Friedrich Stadler
In the summer term of 2019, the HTC Master studio pursued a rather advanced format. The students also contributed to a conference. Naturally, the studio and the conference had the same topic. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, they were dedicated to the dialogue between members of the Bauhaus and the Vienna Circle. After Hannes Meyer had succeeded Walter Gropius as director of the Bauhaus in 1928, he started a comprehensive lecture series in Dessau that was intended to bring philosophical and scientific impulses and debates to the students. Among others, he invited members of the Vienna Circle, an informal group of philosophers and scientists who met from 1924 until 1936 in Moritz Schlick’s mathematical seminar at Boltzmanngasse 5. The Vienna Circle – its core members were Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Kurt Gödel, Hans Hahn, Richard von Mises, Otto Neurath and Philipp Frank, brother of the architect Josef Frank – rejected metaphysics and instead propagated the idea of a unity of science, based on logical positivism or empiricism. The Neue Sachlichkeit architecture of the Bauhaus seemed to be closely related to these ideas – this, at least, was the assessment by Peter Galison, who was one of the first to write about this common quest for “transparent construction”. 8 Unsurprisingly, the lectures by Neurath, Feigl and Carnap were welcomed at the Bauhaus, but were also controversially discussed. It turned out that the dialogue between philosophers/scientists on the one side and artists/architects on the other side appeared difficult. 9 Even though they shared common goals – a rational, elementary and logical constitution of the modern world – they apparently had different foundations on which they built their rules and modern positions. The political circumstances in fascist Germany and Austria terminated this unique intellectual exchange, leaving behind many questions. With some scepticism against positivism as the basis for philosophical and creative thinking, the six Master’s students partly questioned the possibility of and the need for a unity of languages and sciences, even though they knew that formal languages have become the successful basis for digital processes, including architectural design. Joseph Eckhart’s essay is called “B.A.S.I.C///Space* – New perspectives on spatial theory via Charles Kay Ogden, László Moholy-Nagy and Rudolf Carnap”. It impressed by showing how absurd communication and expression might become if Basic English – invented by Charles Kay Ogden and propagated by
It was one of the key positions of the Vienna Circle that everything is acces sible to man and that there are no mys terious depths in science.10 The minutes of their meetings were intended to demonstrate the clarity and transparency of their anti-metaphysical thinking. Even though Rose Rand, one of the few women among the Vienna Circle members, recorded the discussions as precisely as possible, the texts, later typed up, are hard to read and understand. Christina Ehrmann supposed that the lack of any kind of inter-subjective communication – conscious and unconscious, verbal and non-verbal, serious and non-serious – led to an impossible task. In order to demonstrate the increasing complexity of human interaction, she called her contribution “Spatializing Minutes”, in which she created the minutes of the minutes of the minutes, including her own reading, spatial diagrams and performance as a kind of “deep description”. Maximilian Aelfers addressed the topic of formal digital languages, which also have their origin in the thinking of the Vienna Circle. Assuming that architectural design is based on a very small number of computer languages (Java or Python), the dream of a common formal basis has seemingly become true. However, Maximilian questioned the inherent formalism of digitally based architecture. He wrote a manifesto reminding himself and others to include social, environmental and political issues in the design. The contribution was called: “A Critique of the Architectural Discourse in the Post-Digital Era. Productivity and Value Ratio in the Context of Formalistic Languages”. The word “Kälte” (cold) became an interesting metaphor for the “objectivity” of both the Bauhaus and the Vienna Circle. It was used as a negative attribute of modernism and all its possible meanings – rational, Neue Sachlichkeit, sober, rigid, logical, materialistic, technical, emotionless etc. – in the early 20th century and also after World War II. A “cold” architecture was considered to be the right construction shell for the “cold persona”, a term coined by the sociologist Helmut Plessner in the 1920s, in order to steel oneself against the chaos of the modern world. In her essay “On the Development and Topicality of the Cold Persona”, Elisabeth Fölsche recognized that the term has lost its threatening character, because it is no longer architecture with which we protect ourselves. Social media has become the contemporary armour behind which people hide, paradoxically by permanently posing. Naomi Mittempergher devoted her contribution to a typical but mostly unanswered question: “Otto Neurath’s Understanding of Architecture”. Was he really a proponent of modern architecture? From Neurath’s vast written oeuvre, Naomi collected those essays where he referred to architectural issues. She analysed them according to their date, their topic and their readers (a significant difference can be shown between articles for professional architects and those for working class newspapers). Structured in four chapters, Naomi showed that Neurath’s often mentioned pragmatic position also has a lot to do with the fact that he did not elaborate his thoughts in great depth. Because he was not an architect himself, he sometimes remained superficial or contradictory. His writings on architecture are entirely driven by his economic and social manifestos; it remains unclear if
modern architecture alone would be the appropriate way to realise them. The students presented their critical results in performative formats during the conference – analogous to the regular meetings of the Vienna Circle on Thursday evenings, they came together as the Wiener Bauhauskreis (Vienna Bauhaus Circle) – and later published their papers in a self-designed book with the title METAMAGAZIN – Contributions on Science and Art (an allusion to the rigid anti-metaphysical position of the Vienna Circle, which was criticised by the students). The contents and the design of these diverse and critical contributions can be studied in detail via: ika.akbild. ac.at/work#132 Angelika Schnell Design Studio MArch
→ fig. 6 / p. 8 → fig. 7–9 / p. 8
8 Peter Galison, “Aufbau/Bauhaus: Logical Positivism and Architectural Modernism”, in: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Summer 1990), pp. 709-752 9 See Peter Bernhard, “Meyers Programm der Gastvorträge”, in: Philipp Oswalt (ed.), Hannes Meyers neue Bauhauslehre, Bauwelt Fundamente No. 164, Birkhäuser, Basel/Berlin 2019, pp. 308-315 10 “In science there are no ‘depths’; there is surface everywhere: all experience forms a complex network, which cannot always be surveyed and can often be grasped only in parts. Everything is accessible to man; and man is the measure of all things.” Vienna Circle, The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle, manifesto, Vienna 1929
CONFERENCE EVENT The conference was entitled What Remains of Cosmopolitan Modernism? The Dialogue Between Science and Art at the Bauhaus and took place on May 16th and 17th at the Prospekthof, Atelierhaus in Vienna. It was a collaboration between the IKA and the IWK (Institute for Science and Art) at the University of Vienna. In addition to the students, the following lecturers contributed to the topic: Maria Auböck – “From Vienna to Weimar: On the relationships between Vienna and the Bauhaus” Peter Bernhard – “Support that came too late: Philipp Frank’s Bauhaus lectures” Hans-Joachim Dahms – “Rudolf Carnap, László Moholy-Nagy and space” Károly Kókai – “The reception of the scientific worldview of the Vienna Circle at the Bauhaus” Philipp Oswalt: moderator of the final panel – “What remains of Cosmopolitan Modernism?” Angelika Schnell – “Bauhaus Modernism vs. Viennese Modernism” Detlef Schöttker – “Reduction as a universal principle: From economy of thought to economy of design” Anne Siegetsleitner – “On the spirit of the Vienna Circle and the attitude of the Bauhaus” Friedrich Stadler: final panel – “What remains of Cosmopolitan Modernism?” Christoph Wagner – “Johannes Itten and aesthetics as Global Art History”
REVIEW SUMMER 2019
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history museum) that draws on previous visions for the site and our own research. David Gissen Design Studio MArch
→ fig.11 / p. 9 → fig. 25 / p. 15 → fig. 26 / p. 16 → fig. 30 / p. 18
ESC Excursion 2019 30 April - 5 May 2019 GLC David Gissen Patrick Monte Fabian Buxhofer Clara Fickl Sara Hozzankova Lei Jiao Maja Karska Elisa Mazagg Ondrej Mraz Davide Porta Marina Resch Maximilian Unterfrauner Tsun Hsien Yang Reviewers and guests Ashley Bigham Theo Deutinger Stefano Di Martino Erik Herrmann Sylvia Liska
We collectively examined “the architectural design of history” in Vienna’s Heldenplatz square – one of the most contentious sites of the Austrian state, and a space important to the architectural history of history. As designers of history, we contrasted our work with the work of those who design historicist architecture (traditionalists), historians of architectural design (writers on past architecture) and designers of architectural historicism (preservationists). We explored and ultimately designed an architecture framework that has the capacity to produce natural, social and cultural histories – as a material and tangible urban experience. This particular studio focused on the design of history via an initial consideration of three architectural formations – the sphere, the pedestal, and the vitrine – that gave the studio its name. Each of these types of architecture has the capacity to physically shape natural, mo numental and cultural history. What we will call “spheres” are rooms that reconstruct natural and environmental history – like a palm house or planetarium. “Pedestals” – in the form of stelae, plinths and socles – are platforms created to recall the history of human lives and deeds (typically part of monuments and monumental histories), and “vitrines” maintain the fragile artefacts of culture. Participants in the studio examined these typologies in depth, but ultimately introduced additional historical forms, cultivated from the surrounding site, that were not initially considered. These include the “exedra,” the “excavation” and the “scaffold”, among others. The collective goal was to make an architecture out of this spatial vocabulary and its historical flux. In our main project, we revived a vision of Heldenplatz by the Austro-Jewish art historian and curator Hans Tietze (18801954). During the Red Vienna years, Tietze reimagined Heldenplatz as a demilitarized space devoted to park areas with exhibits of art and social history. Here, the Viennese public would come into contact with a series of small galleries set in a ring of interconnected outdoor spaces. Of course, Tietze’s vision for Heldenplatz was never realized, and Tietze himself escaped to New York City as Austria became a part of the Nazi empire. Mirroring Tietze’s overall concept, participants redesigned a small section of Heldenplatz as a type of art-hall landscape that can display combined exhibitions on natural, social, monumental and fine-art history. These exhibitions would hypothetically draw on the collections of the surrounding museums. In effect, we designed an umwelt-kunst-historisches-museum (environment, art and
Organization Luciano Parodi Participants Hannes Stiefel Angelika Schnell Veronika Behawetz Jakob Czinger Christina Ehrmann Martin Eichler Ella Felber Elisabeth Fölsche Patricia Griffiths Christopher Gruber Yoko Halbwidl Oana-Alexandra Ionescu Alma Kelderer Maximilian Klammer Felix Kofler Martin Kohlberger Diana Konovalova Dila Kirmizitoprak Naomi Mittempergher Anna Orbanic Lisa Penz Zoe Pianaro Fabian Puttinger Fabian Schwarz Magdalena Stainer Martin Sturz Carla Veltman Valeriia Malysh
What is the agency of architecture in places of such visceral dispute? How should we understand what architecture can do amid the world’s greatest conflicts? Clearly, typical architectural analysis of floor and site plans, of structures and decorative schemes – magnificent as these places can be – falls short of explaining the impact these places have on lives in the region. What can architecture tell us, in other words, about the relationship between a sacred site and political might in a territory that was successively under Ottoman, British and Jordanian rule and has been occupied by Israeli forces since 1967? Alona Nitzan-Shiftan, The agency of architecture in sacred places, in: In Statu Quo. Structures of Negotiation, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin 2018 (p. 21)
Zionism’s “borderline disorder”, (…), is nothing less than a constitutive ideology (and founding myth) with profound implications for the structure, texture and shifting contours of Israel. The radical core of this ideology is made up of various land and social reform pseudotheories, distinctly utopian, which began to imagine not just a story of Jewish emigration out of Europe and colonization in Palestine, but an actual fiction of Jewish autochthony, a vision of a modern Jewish physiocracy, a picture of an agrarian proletariat engrained in the landscape, an exotic counter-staging to the Jewish diasporic mise-en-scène. Zvi Efrat, The Object of Zionism, Spector Books, Leipzig 2018 (p. 17)
This is the first ideological building in our time. It is not a symbolic building at all. It is neither a woman’s breast, nor an onion nor a jar. The Shrine comes from its inner concept, which has grown into a structure. It is the first building anywhere today that in its totality and in every detail is related to its own basic ideology. Frederick Kiesler, Shrine of the Book, in: Progressive Architecture 46, September 1965 (p. 127)
The destination of the excursion in 2019 was Israel, where we explored Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The point of departure to approach Israel was the Shrine of the Book, Frederick Kiesler’s only realised
building. It was inaugurated in 1965, shortly before he passed away. Coming out of the ESC Studio of summer 2019, entitled Correalities under Construction – Rethinking Kiesler, the idea behind our endeavour was to explore the turning of an architecture manifest, the Correalist Manifest*, into reality, thus making it palpable architecture. ‘Correal’ has two complementary meanings: one derives from its neologistic roots (as ‘Correalism’ is composed of the words “correlate” and “realism”) and confronts us with the constant and tensional negotiation of coexistent realities in this country’s very existence. The nation’s agitated history is still manifested in the occupation and administration of an embattled land, and in tense Israeli border politics. ‘Correal’ also means ‘solidary’ or ‘under joint obligation’. This might be a possible term to describe the internal process of the instantaneous architectural fabrication of the young state. * Frederick Kiesler, Manifeste du Corréalisme, Éditions de l’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, Paris 1947
→ fig. 19 / p. 13 Collaborators and informants in Israel: Zvi Efrat – Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Iddo Ginat – Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Ifat Finkelman – Ifat Finkelman Architecture David Guggenheim – Guggenheim | Bloch Architects and Urbanists Udi Kassif – mkarchitects Yarden Diskin and Sabrina Cegla – The White City Centre We would like to thank for their support: Maria Auböck Studio 3 – Innsbruck Paolo Fontana – Zvi Hecker Architektur und Kunst Stiftung Wolfgang Thaler Tamar Ben-Israel We especially thank Ella Zimmerman for her generosity
guests and organizing a programme consisting of lectures, discussions, contributions by students and practical workshops. The guests were César Reyes from dpr Barcelona, Anja Fritz and Silvia Gioberti from Guerilla Architects, Meriem Chabani from TXKL + New South, Freddy Tuppen, Paula Strunden and Kevin Smeeing from STORE CIC London, Gabu Haindl, Predrag Milic and GangAtelier. The approach taken for the first day of the symposium was to create an atmosphere of exchange, discussion and dynamic input – after every lecture, the physical setup of the space was recon figured. Since the event took place in the main auditorium, the choreography of the space broke the monotony of the speaker-to-audience dynamic, as after every Q&A discussion, both speakers and audience members had to adjust to new seating positions and therefore perspectives. In addition to these discussions, students of the IKA offered their reflections, raising essential questions and voicing statements on the future of architectural practice. The day concluded with an extensive panel discussion with all the guests – among other issues, different approaches in architectural practice and the question of the responsibility and role of architects in our society were discussed. Building on this input, the second day of the symposium asked for actions. Three workshops offered the opportunity to explore different fields and questions in architectural discourse. One workshop led by STORE CIC London concentrated on setting up a VR installation with physical experiences. Here, it was essential to connect virtual with real space. Together with students, GangAtelier questioned the reality of architectural education and practice based on their own experiences, and Predrag Milic discussed possibilities and methods for changing the architectural discourse and preparing for a better future with the workshop participants. → fig. 22 / p. 14
Thesis Project Adam Hudec
LONG LIVE ARCHITECTS – ARCHITECTS ARE DEAD Symposium 29 - 30 March 2019 Christina Ehrmann Martin Eichler Paul Knopf Silvester Kreil Nyima Murry Carla Veltman and students of IKA
Many architecture students have seemingly become disillusioned with the notion of being an architect. The classical idea of being an ‘architect’ – working in hierarchical office-based practices, continually submitting applications to competitions and having a career largely defined from graduation – has somewhat lost its appeal to many young architects today. This comes at a time, though, when these traditional processes are being challenged, subverted and abandoned for alternatives – internationally and in multiple ways. As we depart from the conventional notion of what architects can create, how they work, with whom they collaborate and what functions their work has, we invite an eclectic range of speakers to discuss their practice and philosophy. In order to deconstruct the architect, architectural education must also be deconstructed, and so, alongside lectures and keynotes, the programme will include workshops and seminars to discuss different approaches addressing the question: What is an architect today? With these thoughts and questions in mind, a group of students from the Institute for Art and Architecture organized a two-day symposium, inviting international
Advisors Michelle Howard Cristina Díaz Moreno Efrén García Grinda
“Dusts are solid particles, ranging in size from below 1μm up to at least 100μm, which may be or become airborne, depending on their origin, physical characteristics and ambient conditions.” 11 We do not perceive the 18 kilograms of dusts that every human being, on average, inhales in a lifetime. Science conceives of dusts as singular elements within our ecosystem, while art and architecture can enable us to perceive them through their interactivity with human and non-human bodies. Thus, physical perception has the potential to act as a catalyst in our rediscovery of the interrelationship between dusts and culture, politics, the environment, our individual decisions and our bodies. The Dusts Chambers project attempts to improve our per ception of these phenomena through visual, tactile and olfactory sensations, revealing dusts chambers on three scales defined by my areas of discovery – the Dust Unit, the Dust Aggregate and the Dust Collective. My studies follow the basic scientific model of gathering evidence to prove a hypothesis; in this case, to give visible form to an otherwise invisible, dynamic force. The study of dust first began when scientists went to archives and discovered that the dusts accumulated there were more worthy of study than the objects they had landed on, and that they were in themselves recordings of time. By definition, the archive is the repository of “that which will not go away”, just as our actions upon the environment over time cannot be reversed.
The Roman Poet Horace (65-8 BC) wrote that we are but dust and shadow, and successively, many religions have adapted this phrase to their own doctrines over time. Dusts Chambers are time-accelerating machines, which foresee our futures through dusts. They are interactive instruments, which highlight the relationship between the human and non-human world. Exteriorised, uncontrolled and invisible processes of motion, transformation and contact take place within the devices and are rendered perceptible to the naked eye. These chambers combine, separate, contain, release and act as repository entities for the dust that could become the only collective trace we leave on earth. → fig.1 / p. 5 → fig.15, 16 / p. 12 11 White, G., The Natural History of Selborne. England: Benjamin White, 1789
A BIO-URBAN PROCESS Thesis Project Hannah Jöchl Advisor Wolfgang Tschapeller Dominik Strzelec
The title derives from Charleroi – former industrial heart of Belgium, Ryanair main base Brussels South Charleroi, holder of the dubious title of “Europe’s ugliest city” – and the French term “tapis roulant”, which means moving walkway or conveyor belt. Who is looking through the camera? Is it a visitor, waiting between two connecting flights at the airport, transported smoothly through the city and back on a conveyor belt? Does s/he have enhanced vision due to psychedelic drugs? Is the viewer in a virtual theme park at the airport, simulating a trip through what was once a city? Or is the observer in fact the monstrous city itself, observing and controlling the movement of its own limbs? Charleroi Roulant uses the medium of audiovisual animation and storytelling to simulate a future city scenario in which mobility, automation and the smooth connection between physical and virtual space are highly facilitated. A narrative and future city manifesto feeds the scenario in the form of footnotes. The whole digital setup, from modelling to post-production, is constructed in one 3D file, using multiple fragments of data with the city’s urban fabric as its base, from building blocks and photographs to animated particle path geometries, force fields, built and open-source objects and 8 (∞) camera paths. All along one assumed conveyor belt loop from the airport, through the city and back again. By using strategies like “bad texturing” and “bad mesh animation”, the project visualises a scenario in “Europe’s ugliest city” inside an open-source gaming software, where the player (presumably the passenger) creates his/her own virtual experience of the city. The aim is to question our understanding of beauty in times of constant image production. → fig. 23 / p. 14 Excerpts from the written scenario: MANIFESTO Highly facilitated mobility changes our perception of the world. Networks become essential for urban planning and city design. The condition of future cities becomes fluid. ... NARRATIVE 1 Charleroi Roulant is a network of arti ficial intelligence, connecting the remains of the former Ryanair airport with the residue of the post-industrial city. 2 It is a wholly interconnected, organic belt landscape assembled out of dynamic
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particles running in loops, crossing, intersecting, channelling, pulsating, vibrating.
such as ruination, destruction and transformation are analyzed and interpreted through analogue and digital gestures, models, sculptures and data.
3 Where the belts get denser, they create spatial knots. 4 The system is multidimensional and provides shelter. 5 The system’s fabric is soft and pliable, but at the same time strong and resistant to acids and liquids. It is constructed out of bioplastic, seaweed, production and construction rubble. 6 The apparatus is a soft tissue that has multiple springs fulfilling all processes of a city, with the primary tasks of transmission and transportation, similar to the processes taking place inside the human body. 7 Transportation is conducted through peristalsis, the muscular movement of hollow bodies. Data flow is implemented through a bionic process inspired by neurotransmission. 8 By the processes of lifting, carrying, producing and conveying, the belts create a very pleasant, muffled, humming soundscape. 9 Throughout the system, the tissue substrate is equipped with sensors to detect movement, temperature, viscosity, speed, weight, force fields, congestion, contamination, etc. to regulate its flows. 10 The system is reproductive: its fabric is constantly renewed and growing through self-disposal and reconstruction. 11 Dynamic, pneumatic and hydraulic energy-driven modules along the tissue produce and convey. The substrate captures and transmits energy in multiple forms: photovoltaic, electromagnetic, chemical and kinetic. 12 The system itself is a cyclical system of multiple power plants. The energy flow is in constant flux. 13 It is inhabited by a technology-driven society living and dwelling throughout and within the voids of the landscape. 14 After the industrial collapse, the de mographics of the inhabitants of the former industrial city shifted from formerly coal- and steelworkers to a new generation, a cyber-sharing community that manufactures its own goods, from tech goods such as sensors, to algae as nutrition and fuel, to vehicle components. The community’s main agreement is based on productivity and the sharing of tools and knowledge. They inhabit fragments of the city and use its infrastructure.
Roland Barthes, referring to abstract expressionist painting, explains the notion of the gesture as the surplus or leftover of an action that generates an atmosphere. Therefore, this thesis doesn’t focus on a final result, but rather on the determined and undetermined actions that generate an atmosphere around the process of making. Entropy – in the field of thermodynamics – measures the amount of energy needed in a process of transformation of factors such as temperature, pressure or composition. Applied by analogy to the transformation processes that occur in architecture, the notion of entropic gestures focuses on the continuous transformation and ephemerality of architectural objects. Such architectural transformations are investigated in the form of analogue and digital models, as physical and virtual expressions of the entropic conditions that constitute memorial architecture in Yugoslavia. The models are defined by a liminal condition between a signifying form and a gestural expression, between matter and data, incident and intent. Consequently, the models developed are assembled in the form of an atlas, serving as a catalogue for further research. In relation to the title – IF I BREAK REBUILD ME – the atlas focuses on a processual working method and its im plications, on the breaking and rebuilding of matter and data, and on its meaning. Throughout this atlas, a notion of archi tecture is developed that is positioned in the interplay between process, gesture, imagination and theory. It introduces a Cartesian rationality to a process that eludes this logic, creating a gesture in itself. → fig. 18 / p. 13 → fig. 29 / p. 17 → fig. 32 / p. 19
CHALLENGING STATIC ARCHITECTURES: AN EXPLORATION OF CYCLIC PROCESSES, SHAPES AND MOVEMENTS Thesis Project Maximilian Klammer
16 A surrealistic landscape is created.
Advisors Wolfgang Tschapeller Werner Skvara External advisors Georg Gläser Klara Mundilova
annulus ring shaped cyclic occurring in cycles; regularly repeated geom.: having all vertices lying on a circle
ATLAS OF ENTROPIC GESTURES Thesis Project Benjamin Softic Advisors Hannes Stiefel Luciano Parodi
How can we think about architecture with regard to speculations about its future decay? This thesis explores the notion of entropic gestures in architecture, through processes of researching, observing and model-making. By looking closely at monuments of the 1960s and 1980s in former Yugoslavia and earthwork projects by land artists in the US, the thesis aims to translate the motifs inscribed in these works through the idea of the entropic gesture. Topics
→ fig. 24 / p. 15 → fig. 34 / p. 19
SPECULATIONS ON A NEW URBAN HOSPITALITY Thesis Project Anna Krumpholz Advisors August Sarnitz Lisa Schmidt-Colinet
In the process of eating, food and the human body become one. The Spatiality of Food presents an alternative scenario in Vienna, capital of the Land of Plenty, where food is reintroduced as a space-defining, central, community-generating and pleasurable element, defining a new urban hospitality, and a new awareness of the sensuality of food.
15 Furthermore, they design and study it, creating digital avatars that produce their own digital, augmented and virtual arts.
Animation, film & sound, 16:9, 24 fps Length 5.30 min
“Stülpen”, a German description of the movement of an envelope through itself, or of turning it from the inside to the outside, is the starting point for an exploration of various constructions that are able to perform this movement. Several ring segments, so-called annulus sectors, are connected and circularly arranged to form an object that performs the desired movement of contraction and expansion while rotating through itself. Forming a toroidal object with circular elements of the smallest spatial unit, the planar surface challenges geometrical, mathematical descriptions of the circular curve and its deformation in space. Proximity constructions of the deformed element in space, performed by cyclic algorithms, allow the transformation of an analogue model into digital space, and make it possible to draw mathematical assumptions about its morphological and kinematic behaviour in the form of a loop. The cycloid stands as a representative for movement, structure, form and process.
What would happen if people no longer moved through spaces, but those spaces moved around them, thus creating a new environment and “new ways of life”? The thesis “Polyannular Cyclide” seeks to develop a kinematic hull that challenges conventional architecture and its static, space dividing elements. This new form, an envelope mediating between one side and another, epitomizes the wish for a cohesive heterogeneity between two opposing realms. The complex geometric construction design developed forms a new architectural element that allows for adaptation in an ever-changing environment. The study is based on the fascination of opening, of the space between two different worlds, its potential to yield a benefit for both sides by offering the possibility of mediation and exchange between them, and the desire to expand this purpose while each side can retain its initial properties.
In the proposed Public Food Infrastructure, food – the number one basic, universal necessity – is provided for all hungry citizens with an appetite. They approach, prepare and consume food in public space together, as hosts and guests in alternating roles. An exemplary food centre is developed, which integrates into a public park in Vienna at Bacherplatz square. Here, an increasingly porous and ultimately bursting wall that spreads smells and offers small pieces of food forms the interface between the urban space and the Food Garden, whose landscape dissolves the strict pre-definition of kitchen and dining room, table, chair and plate, and enhances a free, playful and sensual approach to eating together. People, food and plants are integrated into the same system. Several smaller interventions for eating and drinking in public space accompany the citizens’ way through the city, and together they form the Public Food Infrastructure that is directly linked to the public transportation system. The project derives from the observation of everyday eating habits shifting from the private to the public realm, and consequently, the dissolution of the intimate table society 12 into an expanded mass of anonymous with-eaters 13. The Land of Plenty, a medieval dream of the hungry poor, has come true in a distorted version: food has become self-evident in Western cities; abundance and oversupply make eating a matter of course. On a local, global and social level, there is a need for alternative food scenarios. In the project, architecture becomes a mediator between the city, the body and food. → fig.10 / pp. 8, 9 → fig. 31 / p. 18 12 German: intime Tischgesellschaft 13 German: Mitesser
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fig.1 Augmented Pinnacle, Photo: Joanna Pianka Dusts Chambers. Adam Hudec → p. 3
fig. 2 Institute of mass behavior, vertical and horizontal sections. Martin Kohlberger Correalities Under Construction. Rethinking Kiesler → p. 1
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fig. 3 The Generator of the Human, Shadow Render. Alma Kelderer Correalities Under Construction. Rethinking Kiesler → p. 1
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Architekturzentrum Wien
Elevation North 1 : 200
lukasfeichtner Galerie
fig. 4 MINE 2K58. Concept model of a hypothetical mining structure. Normunds Püne How to live in an air handler → p. 1 AUSARBEITUNG
Kultur Drogerie Facade Scale 1:200 mm
Elevation Main Entrance 1 : 200
ecnartnE niaM noitavelE 002 : 1
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RUDOLF VON ALT THEODOR HÖRMANN KARL WITTGENSTEIN FÖRDERER DER WIENER SECESSION Gerard Byrne Upon all the living and the dead
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fig. 5 Catalogue Artspaces in Vienna. Layout by Pia Bauer, Ida Fröhlich, Lucas Reisigl, Sophia Stemshorn. Drawings Albertina: Daron Chiu, Florian Berrar. Upper Belvedere: Pia Bauer, Ida Fröhlich. Belvedere 21: Oscar Binder, Nikolaus Podlaha. Nordbahnhalle: Oscar Binder, Nikolaus Podlaha. Secession: Leah Dorner, Hans Schmidt Master / Pieces → p. 2
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fig. 6 Symposium Weltbürgermoderne, What Remains of Cosmopolitan Modernism? The Dialogue Between Science and Art at the Bauhaus. Prospekthof, Atelierhaus → p. 2 Photo: Rebecca Merlic
fig. 10 Kitchen Garden, Thesis Project "The Spatiality of Food", Anna Krumpholz → p. 4
fig. 7–9 Wiener Bauhauskreis. Performance by students Maximilian Aelfers, Joseph Eckhart, Christina Ehrmann, Elisabeth Fölsche, Gloria Hinterleitner, Naomi Mittempergher. For the publication METAMAGAZIN, please see: ika.akbild.ac.at/work#132 → p. 2 Photos: Angelika Schnell
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fig. 11 Heldenplatz, final site axonometric. Jiao Lei. Spheres, Pedestals, Vitrines: The Architectural Design of History → p. 3
fig. 12 The transformation of the Viktor-Adler-market, part of the project "Art Market". Ana Maria Chiriac, Marta Teodora, Master / Pieces → p. 2
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fig. 13 Breathing Chambers. Salome Schramm, How to live in an air handler → p. 1
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fig. 14 Symbiotic interactions, vertical section. Anna Orbanic Correalities Under Construction, Rethinking Kiesler → p. 1
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fig. 15 Prototype. Dusts Chambers. Adam Hudec → p. 3 Photo: Adam Hudec
fig. 16 Prototype. Dusts Chambers. Adam Hudec → p. 3 Photo: Adam Hudec
fig. 17 Exhibition opening 7 June staircase Althanstrasse 12, part of the project "On Resources". Pia Bauer, Ida Fröhlich. Master / Pieces → p. 2 Photo: Antje Lehn
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fig. 18 Popina Memorial, Bogdan Bogdanovic If I Break Rebuild Me. Atlas of Entropic Gestures. Benjamin Softic → p. 4
fig. 19 Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, Frederick Kiesler Excursion CORREAL Israel 2019 → p. 3 Photo: Hannes Stiefel
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fig. 20, 21 Inventory, photographs by Jiri Tomicek, part of the project "Distribution of Perception". Master / Pieces → p. 2
fig. 22 Transforming Practice Symposium Long live architects – architects are dead. Lectures Day 1. → p. 3 Photo: Christina Ehrmann
fig. 23 Still from animation. Charleroi Roulant. A bio-urban process. Hannah Jöchl → p. 3
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fig. 24 Photoelasticity – Polyannular Cyclide. Challenging static architectures: an exploration of cyclic processes, shapes and movements. Maximilian Klammer → p. 4
fig. 25 Site model of final project. Fabian Buxhofer Spheres, Pedestals, Vitrines: The Architectural Design of History → p. 3
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fig. 26 Axonometric. Ondrej Mraz Spheres, Pedestals, Vitrines: The Architectural Design of History → p. 3
fig. 27 Oxygen Catching Structure. Salome Schramm How to live in an air handler → p. 1
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fig. 28 Venturing into a higher strata of the atmosphere. Section through a flying lightweight structure. Sebastian Seib How to live in an air handler → p. 1
fig. 29 Animation still. If I Break Rebuild Me. Atlas of Entropic Gestures. Benjamin Softic → p. 4
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fig. 30 Detail model of final project. Ondrej Mraz Spheres, Pedestals, Vitrines: The Architectural Design of History → p. 3
fig. 31 The Spatiality of Food. Speculations on a new urban hospitality. Anna Krumpholz → p. 4 Photo: Christina Ehrmann
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fig. 32 Model. If I Break Rebuild Me. Atlas of Entropic Gestures. Benjamin Softic → p. 4
fig. 33 On the Way, The Spatiality of Food. Speculations on a new urban hospitality. Anna Krumpholz → p. 4
fig. 34 Test apparatus. Polyannular Cyclide. Challenging static architectures: an exploration of cyclic processes, shapes and movements. Maximilian Klammer → p. 4
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MANIFESTO
Laboria Cuboniks (b. 2014) is a xenofeminist collective, spread across five countries and three continents. She seeks to dismantle gender, destroy ‘the family,’ and do away with nature as a guarantor for inegalitarian political positions. Her name is an anagram of ‘Nicolas Bourbaki’, a pseudonym under which a group of largely French mathematicians worked towards an affirmation of abstraction, generality and rigour in mathematics in the early twentieth century.
LABORIA CUBONIKS
ZERO
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Institute for Art and Architecture (IKA) Temporary premises of IKA: Augasse 2–6, 1090 Vienna 1st floor, core A
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Ours is a world in vertigo. It is a world that swarms with technological mediation, interlacing our daily lives with abstraction, virtuality, and complexity. XF constructs a feminism adapted to these realities: a feminism of unprecedented cunning, scale, and vision; a future in which the realization of gender justice and feminist emancipation contribute to a universalist politics assembled from the needs of every human, cutting across race, ability, economic standing, and geographical position. No more futureless repetition on the treadmill of capital, no more submission to the drudgery of labour, productive and reproductive alike, no more reification of the given masked as critique. Our future requires depetrification. XF is not a bid for revolution, but a wager on the long game of history, demanding imagination, dexterity and persistence.
XF seizes alienation as an impetus to generate new worlds. We are all alienated – but have we ever been otherwise? It is through, and not despite, our alienated condition that we can free ourselves from the muck of immediacy. Freedom is not a given—and it’s certainly not given by anything ‘natural’. The construction of freedom involves not less but more alienation; alienation is the labour of freedom’s construction. Nothing should be accepted as fixed, permanent, or ‘given’—neither material conditions nor social forms. XF mutates, navigates and probes every horizon. Anyone who’s been deemed ‘unnatural’ in the face of reigning biological norms, anyone who’s experienced injustices wrought in the name of natural order, will realize that the glorification of ‘nature’ has nothing to offer us—the queer and trans among us, the differently-abled, as well as those who have suffered discrimination due to pregnancy or duties connected to child-rearing. XF is vehemently anti-naturalist. Essentialist naturalism reeks of theology—the sooner it is exorcised, the better.
Why is there so little explicit, organized effort to repurpose technologies for progressive gender political ends? XF seeks to strategically deploy existing technologies to re-engineer the world. Serious risks are built into these tools; they are prone to imbalance, abuse, and exploitation of the weak. Rather than pretending to risk nothing, XF advocates the necessary assembly of technopolitical interfaces responsive to these risks. Technology isn’t inherently progressive. Its uses are fused with culture in a positive feedback loop that makes linear sequencing, prediction, and absolute caution impossible. Technoscientific innovation must be linked to a collective theoretical and political thinking in which women, queers, and the gender non-conforming play an unparalleled role.
The real emancipatory potential of technology remains unrealized. Fed by the market, its rapid growth is offset by bloat, and elegant innovation is surrendered to the buyer, whose stagnant world it decorates. Beyond the noisy clutter of commodified cruft, the ultimate task lies in engineering technologies to combat unequal access to reproductive and pharmacological tools, environmental cataclysm, economic instability, as well as dangerous forms of unpaid/underpaid labour. Gender inequality still characterizes the fields in which our technologies are conceived, built, and legislated for, while female workers in electronics (to name just one industry) perform some of the worst paid, monotonous and debilitating labour. Such injustice demands structural, machinic and ideological correction.
www.akbild.ac.at/ika arch@ akbild.ac.at
Chair / Deputies: Wolfgang Tschapeller Lisa Schmidt-Colinet Werner Skvara
Office: Room 1.3.11, 1st floor, core A Ulrike Auer +43 (1) 58816-5101 u.auer@akbild.ac.at Gabriele Mayer +43 (1) 58816-5102 g.mayer@akbild.ac.at
Postal address: Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna, Austria
Excerpt from: Laboria Cuboniks, The Xenofeminist Manifesto. A Politics for Alienation. London: Verso, 2018. Full Xenofeminist manifesto by Laboria Cuboniks: laboriacuboniks.net/index.html
Review Summer 2019 Editor: Christina Jauernik Proofreading: Judith Wolfframm Design: grafisches Büro