A Building??

A Building?? – You’re kidding, right?

Elephant in the room

Just what is it that makes the imagination of a building today so different, apparently so unappealing?

Let’s look at the subject from the end for once, from the “end of studies”. For many members of the IKA community, this end – by its very nature also a beginning – is the thesis project of the IKA Master’s Programme in Architecture.

Over the past three years, 14 out of 44 master thesis projects at IKA focused, in one way or another, on the design of a (terrestrial) building, or buildings. In this period, the number of building designs gradually decreased from year to year. (The term “building” is used here in its broadest sense).

In 2020 twelve master thesis projects qualified for the IKA’s internal nomination procedure for the prizes of the Academy. None of them were projects that investigated the potential functions of a building in contemporary societies and actual environments, or in nearby futures, in terms of design. The eligible projects didn’t include any plans for architectural structures or constructions that would have expressed, by all the available means of architectural conception and representation, their authors’ true desire to realize these plans in the actual physical world.

Hence, the elaboration of building proposals presently does not seem to be of overwhelming interest to a majority of IKA students when facing their final project in architectural studies. This is remarkable. It needs to be acknowledged and considered. And yet, it would be worthwhile – for students and faculty – to thoroughly explore what it is that constitutes this phenomenon, and to draw conclusions from the resulting findings.

Free adaption of a Richard Hamilton collage title: Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (1956)

14.00–18.00

Hannes Stiefel N. N.

ESC

ECOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY CULTURAL HERITAGE

In 2019 alone, 27,681 new buildings were erected in Austria.1

It’s evident that not all of these buildings can be considered works of architecture per se. And yet, all of them, as we know, have a tremendous impact on their manifold environments.

While under the current regime of extreme climates, all of us in the field of architecture finally have the chance (or, to put it bluntly, are forced) to become aware of the relational nature of all objects, subjects and spaces, grown and constructed, questions of buildings obtain new significance. Such questions do not focus on buildings as functional objects, but rather on their complex function in interplay with their environments (Umwelten).

The environmental function of architecture needs to be addressed, investigated, studied and reformulated by design – today more than ever. And what, if not an anticipated future building structure, operating in specifically complex critical environments, is practically predestined to serve as a model for such research by design?

In the fields of academic architectural studies, arts-based research in architecture and experimental architectural practice, the idea of a model is constantly pushed to its limits. A model (from the Latin modulus = measure) is by definition a measuring device, a plumbing tool, a mediating structure, a research instrument. And architecture, through building, is capable of testing, observing and further developing these models in full scale in particular physical realms and specific societal and environmental contexts. That’s why we so urgently need more buildings whose conceptions are rooted in the above-mentioned fields of architecture. Consequently, an experimental building practice must finally be recognized and fostered as an environmental research practice – also and especially by and within the relevant academic institutions.

IKA is the Institute of Art and Architecture. And the highest art of architecture is the art of building: building as applied art-based environmental research practice. It is worth striving for, constantly and continuously.

1 Source: Statistics Austria (www.statistik.at/web_de/statistiken/ menschen_und_gesellschaft/wohnen/ wohnungs_und_gebaeudeerrichtung/ fertigstellungen/026021.html)