WORKS+WORDS BIENNALE 2019

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WORKS+WORDS BIENNALE 2019 presents research within the field of architecture in Europe.

This - the second Biennale - is in the main exhibition space at KADK - Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering in their buildings close to the Opera House.

To paraphrase the open invitation from the academy to architecture schools to participate in the exhibition, the Biennale is about contemporary artistic research in Europe that aims to develop new ground in the field of architecture and is characterized by combining the making of works with reflections in words.

Artistic research is defined as the integrated part of an artistic process that leads to an accessible work and is accompanied by intellectual reflection on the process itself as well as the presentation of the finished work.

This means that the visitor is challenged and confronted - it is an exhibition that more than deserves time and effort - but the Biennale is not only about communicating stimulating and, in many cases, complicated ideas that show how architects reassess what we have built and how and why we build but it is also about how architects have to now take on and resolve complex new challenges.

KADK has emphasised that the United Nations sustainable development goals now form a framework to teaching and research at the academy and the invitation to participate in the Biennale asked that the goals should be considered and much of the work explores the impact on society that is a consequence of the research if it is implemented.

Ostensibly, this is an exhibition is about ideas - about theories and proposals and reassessments of accepted maxims and that exploration is expressed in words - but it is also about architects who, as creative people, inevitably express themselves and communicate their ideas visually so here there is a fascinating range of styles for visual presentations from photography to models - one has a paper and cardboard model of a theatre with a cut-out paper audience in the rank of seats but on the screen, in the model, is shown a stop-motion video of how the public moves through and round that space. There are fine prints and drawings here that show that many architects are fine draughtsmen and talented artists and many of the projects show a heightened sense of colour and texture that is too rarely carried over to finished buildings.

These research projects are also a reminder, of course, that architecture is about extraordinary imaginations and about communicating …. about initially getting unique ideas and innovative solutions across to a client or to a collaborator or an assistant or a senior partner or a planner or to the public before any scheme can move on to realisation.

There are 30 research projects presented here and they all redress the too easy perception that modern architecture is now commercially driven and is just an adjunct of engineering, a driving force behind the financial demands of predatory investors in speculative developments and subservient to large-scale and inhuman planning. Here is architecture still as an art and architecture as a discipline close to philosophy and social science and the research here is much more about ways of seeing our built environment …. much more about how we experience, appreciate and move though built space … than about mundane aspects of what we build and how.

written material that accompanies WORKS+WORDS can be downloaded as a pdf file

WORKS+WORDS at KADK,
Danneskiold-Samsøe Allé,
1435 Copenhagen K
28 November 2019 until 19 January 2020

KADK exhibition of graduate work 2016

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The annual exhibition of the work of graduates from KADK …  Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering… continues until the 21st August.

This is project work by 162 newly-qualified architects and 80 designers. Themes covered reflect current concerns about the environment, sustainability and, on the architecture side, adapting existing buildings to new uses or fitting new demands, in terms of evolving life style or new expectations, within an existing urban landscape. 

What is fascinating is to see that courses and projects set by academic staff clearly reflect major new concerns that the formal education and training system has to respond to now but the projects also show the personal concerns and interests of this, the next generation of architects and designers, as they grapple with and resolve these problems with huge amounts of energy and considerable imagination.

Student projects are divided into the separate teaching disciplines … so Building Design and Culture; Building Design Technology; Building and Landscape Design; Art and Design; Product Design and the work of the Institute of Visual Design … but there are recurring themes across the disciplines such as the exploration of the potential of new materials; to balance that, a focus on new ways to use traditional building materials and building techniques such as timber framing and a focus on using marginal land … both less hospitable topographies as climate change means the occupation of more extreme environments and the need to reuse difficult brown-field sites in densely built cities rather than encroaching further on agricultural land beyond a city boundary.

Over the next week or so more detailed assessments of some of the projects will be posted on this site. 

 

 

Afgangsudstilling Sommer 2016

KADK, Danneskiold-Samsøes Allé 51, 1435 Copenhagen K
continues until the 21 August 2016 - open every day from 11.00 to 18.00
admission free

KADK graduation diploma show

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This exhibition of student work covers architecture, conservation, furniture design, product design, graphic and computer design and is the diploma show of the graduates this year from Det Kongelige Danske Kunstakademis Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering (the Royal Danish Academy or KADK for short).

It is worth spending time looking at the works to assess the current state of architecture and design in Denmark and to see the phenomenal talent of the students now coming through the education system here.

It is possible to identify a number of key themes - not so much in terms of the assigned project headings but more in the sense of the concerns that are now becoming a focus of attention for young architects and designers - so in architecture one strong theme that stands out was building on marginal land … particularly open or exposed or difficult rock landscape with little vegetation. Clearly, this is, in part, a response to changes in global climate where constructing settlements further and further north may become necessary as rising temperatures and lack of rain make living at latitudes closer to the Equator much more difficult but also of course young architects from Greenland and Iceland do come to Denmark for their training and the landscape that is familiar to them is very different from the green landscape and woodlands around the Baltic.

Other clear themes on the architecture side were the use of hefty timbers for framing, rather than steel, in the roofing tradition of the warehouses of Copenhagen, and an imaginative approach to using a diverse range of facing materials. 

 

The work of nearly 150 architecture students are on display through two large halls and the projects are grouped in sections including Spatial Design, Urbanism and Societal Change, Ecology and Tectonics and Political Architecture: Critical Sustainability.

Throughout all the work graphics are diverse in terms of style of presentation but of an incredible high standard, as I suppose you would expect at this level and with CAD and high-quality printing available to everyone, but it was also good to see the continued use of models, some of amazing detail and complexity, rather than students just relying on computer 3D graphic modelling and rendering.

To the other side of the entrance to the building is a third large hall with the design exhibition of the work of more than 80 design students and here the disciplines include furniture design, textile design, industrial and ceramic design, production design, fashion design, typography, a section defined as game art, design and development and the largest group of students whose projects came under the heading Visual Culture and Identity.

 

It was difficult not to smile at the number of projects around cycling … only in Copenhagen eh? … but there were some incredibly sophisticated furniture designs with some work on modular furniture but it was also interesting to see the number of pieces that build on and take forward Danish cabinet-making traditions.

 

The exhibition is in the old smithy building on Holmen at the heart of the design schools on the south side of the harbour in Copenhagen. For visitors who do not know this part of the city, it is well worth spending time walking around the area looking at the industrial and naval buildings that have been taken into new use as this area has been revitalised over the last decade or so with the transfer of the area from naval dockyards to academic and residential use.

For details of opening times and so on go to the current exhibition link in the right-hand column of this site or see the KADK site. The exhibition is closed until 26th July for the Danish holiday but then opens until the 16th August.

Increasing details: an analysis of good design

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Posts through June were mostly about 3daysofdesign - a series of events that were held in Copenhagen at the end of May. Just to conclude those posts, I want to write a bit more here about one of the events … an exhibition at The Silo, called Re-Framing Danish Design, that was  staged as a collaboration between Frame magazine and the new online design site DANISH™. 

 

 

Two young designers, Niek Pulles from the Netherlands and Sebastian Herkner from Germany, were invited to assess or reinterpret 10 specific design pieces from Denmark that cover a wide range of styles and dates from the Safari Chair designed by Kaare Klint in 1933 to the Fiber Chair from Muuto that first went into production last year. What linked all the pieces - apart from being Danish - is that they are all still in production.

Both designers are already well established in their own studios and have a rapidly growing international reputaion - so they have clear, professional opinions about design - they have, presumably, views on how new design can and should move forward but also, as they come from neighbouring countries, they have an appropriate detachment from the Danish design tradition and from Danish design training.

The ten pieces were selected by the organisers of the exhibition and sent to their design studios. 

 

Pulles decided to adapt the pieces by recovering them in challenging colours or interesting textures and his part of the exhibition attracted a lot of attention because these transformations seemed irreverent and possibly, for some, shocking and compounded a view that Danish design, compared to work from other countries, can appear to be too safe, too boring and lacking in humour. Pulles rectified that. The works he produced were lots of things but not boring.

 
 

Herkner, on the other hand, took a more subtle and analytical approach and for me that was actually more interesting. He worked with the pieces around in his studio and, as they became familiar, he identified specific qualities in each design and tried to appreciate what gave a sense of meaning to the designs. By sharing that process with us, through the exhibition, he also revealed something more general about how we analyse design and about how we decide which qualities and characteristics can make designs good or great or try to see which qualities explain why some designs retain their popularity.  

Several of these Danish pieces are very well-known - particularly the Series 7 Chair by Arne Jacobsen - and most are widely acknowledged as good design - they have had a place in many Danish homes for many years and they are still purchased in large enough quantities to ensure their place in a current catalogue.  

Clearly that in itself raises interesting questions. Do some pieces continue in production because they are acknowledged to be well designed? Is it simply because they have never been bettered? Is it because they acquire a sort of stamp of general approval or, possibly, is it just because they are familiar, they are a safe choice for the buyer? 

Although it was not discussed in the exhibition, there is also an interesting insight here into a commercial aspect of design and manufacture: designers and manufacturers have to be able to distinguish which qualities in a design might generally be described as good by a professional designer but might not be appreciated widely enough to make the piece viable in commercial terms.

By placing a magnifying glass in a frame or stand with a fixed relationship to the pieces, Herkner made the viewer look at a point or area that he wanted to emphasise so each white frame holding the magnifying glass was different and each was specific to its piece and the position and the angle of the magnifying glass was fixed. A large magnifying glass could have been left free beside the object with the implication that the viewer had to look closely at the details of the materials and the construction techniques of the design but this was much more controlled than that.  

In a wider context Herkner was, in effect, saying don’t take these designs for granted. Don’t just shrug and say I bought this because I like it or I bought this because my parents had one when I was little or I bought it because the design book said it was a classic. He was inviting visitors to the exhibition to really look and look carefully to see why both the design and the way each piece is manufactured is so good.

 

But this assessment was not just about looking at detail and appreciating quality. 

Herkner produced a set of A5 prompt cards. On one side is the framework and magnifying glass in white silhouette against a strong purple/blue and on the reverse there is a simple outline drawing of the piece and a brief summary of his reaction to the object and a single word that sums up this response and the cards were held together with a broad white rubber band. Simple but very very stylish.

There are eleven cards in the pack with the first one having a short introduction under the heading ‘Increasing details’. Then the ten specific cards are:

  • simplicity The Caravaggio Lamp by Cecilie Manz

  • craftsmanship J39 Chair by Børge Mogensen

  • sustainability Fiber Chair from Muuto by Iksos Berlin

  • functionality A Series 7 Chair from Fritz Hansen by Arne Jacobsen

  • modularity The Montana System by Peter J Lassen

  • self-explanatory Plateau Side Table by Søren Rose

  • mobility Tray Table by Hans Bølling

  • poetry Safari Chair from Carl Hansen by Kaare Klint

  • transfer Nordic Antique Wallpaper by Heidi Zilmer

  • irony Tongue Chair from Howe by Arne Jacobsen

 
 

Through the magnifying glass, the viewer was directed to a specific feature and in some cases that explained the characteristic or definition given to the piece but in some it focused on an aspect of the piece that was actually unrelated to the word or the text. To take the Safari Chair as one example, the chair was not assembled in the exhibition and the magnifying glass focused on the brass locking nut that holds the chair together when it is in use … so a crucial but normally overlooked technical feature of the design rather than something ‘poetic’ and for the chair by Borge Mogensen the magnifying glass was focused on the woven seat and that appears to comment on texture or the use of materials but, in fact, the card explains that several years ago Sebastian had visited a paper mill near Barcelona where paper cord for seating is made and this formed, for him, a personal connection with the work.

 

I confess that I was slightly confused when Herkner, in his introduction, emphasises that these ‘ten characteristics are interchangeable.’ Although I can appreciate that, for instance, the Safari Chair, if seen on a theatre or film set for Out of Africa is merely using a period piece in a poetic way but on an urban balcony in Copenhagen might be ironic but it could never be described as simple or six Muuto chairs around a dining table become modules and are functional but have nothing to do with mobility.

What is important is that Herkner is recommending careful observation and careful analysis of the object in reference to our normal criteria for assessing a design - its function, its aesthetics, its use of materials, the technical details and so on - but he also wants the viewer or user to analyse their own reaction and interact with the piece.

So what at first appears to be clinical … what could be more clinical than a magnifying glass? … rapidly becomes an analysis of our emotional reaction to the design and our connection with a piece. So this then becomes a very personal interpretation of the term reframing for both Herkner and for the visitor to the exhibition.

My only real criticism is that this might be seen as an academic exercise by a designer for designers. He excludes any form of judgement or opinion - which you might expect if design works are given art gallery status under a spotlight - and there is no context if these are to be seen as readily available product pieces that anyone can buy. I’m not complaining about that but it was interesting that no attempt was made to assess how these pieces are used either individually or together so where and how does the buyer fit in? 

Someone could move into the Silo - in the space above the exhibition - when the new apartments are finished and purchase all these design pieces. It’s possible. So, how would they work together? Would they show the buyer had a clear appreciation of good design? Would it be tasteful or slightly odd to have a Safari Chair alongside a Montana shelf system? Well it all depends on the colours chosen and if the Safari Chair was used as a focus/discussion piece or if, maybe, it had been inherited from the family and was clearly well used and well loved. Or would putting these objects together, even theoretically, be seen as a cautious approach to design, buying only what is recognised or generally accepted as good design?

Sebastian Herkner raises some incredibly important questions and ideas about design in general but specifically about how we respond to good design and how important it is that we analyse and try to understand that reaction.

 

Next month, there will be another opportunity to see the exhibition at Northmodern at the Bella Center in Copenhagen from the 13 to the 15 August.