RÄGASCHIARM ISSUE FOUR 05.10.2009 INCM009.li
Things are going wild. But still, all in all, they are heading in the right direction with the INCM009. Well, it’s about time now...because, you know, in one or two weeks from now, we’ll already know our travel-destination for the autumn 2010 and summer 2011! Some people will realize that they were just bidding for a mountain of unpayed work. And they got it and are even grateful for that. These people must be either somehow crazy or architects!? or a combination of both with lots of love. “easians”, they say, is the name for that. easians!
MORE THAN JUST ARCHITECTS We don’t want to be romantic (or do we?), but easa is one of the better things that crossed our way, ever. For us it’s somehow what many society-designers wanted, what always failed in reality. It’s people coming together from many countries. Strongly focused on the future, enough, to leave history and ideologies behind. Being proactive, instead of nostalgic or bitter. Easa happened throughout the last 3 decades. Three decades that saw wars and conflicts in many parts of europe. But easa happened summer after summer and people from all countries came and worked together. Society-designers failed, and house-designers succeeded? Maybe because there is not much of a serious theory, only positive and creative people giving their best. The theoretical idea of easa is not realistic. But easa doesn’t care. It is. Easy to feel but difficult to describe. MORE THAN JUST A NCMEETING Picture it: 120 ambitious and bright students of architecture from almost 40 countries on one spot. These are extraordinary circumstances. This is a ingenious potential. We already saw it with the poster-competition. The thing is not, that we got 40 posters and therefore we will have some really good ones. The thing is, that those 40 posters together are amazing. Just the fact that 40 heads from 40 countries interpreted a task their way, shown in the same room. Same thing with the essays. And the same will work for the workshop “the future of the profession of architecture”. But while the posters and essays were written without an interchange of ideas, the workshop will be a big exchange, some kind of massive brainstorm-cloud.
MORE THAN JUST A WORKSHOP At first sight, the workshop sets the bar a bit high - a bit too high actually. The title would be pretty naive, if it was announcing an answer. It is however only announcing a theme, for which there is no universal answer. It is something we can never reach, but are obsessed with - our future. Something we can’t describe accurately as a theory, only influence it, by thinking about what we want and then taking action. Actually a bit like easa. We are honestly very curious about the workshop, spent lots of time thinking about how to conduct it, how to break the big theme in palatable pieces. While developing the workshop, we often lost ourselves in long discussions about architecture, creativity and where we want to go ourselves. As nice as that was, we realized that a strong structure is needed, in order to have a most inspiring workshop-day. We’ll start by looking at the status quo. What approaches to architecture are there? Where do architects set themeselfes in society and how do they work? We’ll go on with a look at structures beyond the profession of architecture (Military, Wikipedia, TED-talks and more) and will try to transform them into a architectural practice: what do you get from that? Then we’ll step into the future and become proactive, developing our own idea of where to go. We invited all students of easa and all students of the HSL and will be around 200-300 people in total. Many of you will moderate a small group of students. Those already got additional information and inputs by mail. MORE THAN JUST CHAOS We ask a lot from you, we only assume your enthusiasm and ambitions. It’s not confirmed by you, just
felt by us. It’s a risk and it may end up at the border of chaos, but a creative and productive one. And oh, we have such a love for productive chaos! Why do we do this? Because we believe in easa. That you can do something like this with easa. That this experiment will strenghten easa. Where, when and with whome could this workshop be done, if not here and now and with you? And we believe that all your exceptional minds, together in one room, will create something great. And everyone shall leave that very same room enriched and inspired. MORE THAN JUST A FINAL REPORT We have your posters, essays, the results of the workshop, the symposium and 10 days of easians in photos, videos, texts, Rägaschiarms and in our minds. All this together is more than a statement on the future of our profession, it’s more than a document about an INCM, back in the early 21st century - this is easa for us. Our baby. Our little utopia. And we will treat it carefully. We will edit a book, your book! It shall inspire people that have never been to easa before, people that are not even architects. TOO MUCH NOW Go to sleep now, dearest friends, or have coffee and get your universityprojects done before coming! Here you get the usual dose of love, from us to you! addicted already? Yours is keeping us alive! Thanks for keeping us alive! The postman brought you a little reward for that: a magazine we co-authored with you, inspired by you, for you. cheers! the organizers