02 Exhibiting

EXHIBITING, MODULE 02

Exhibiting Architecture. The Architecture Exhibition Complex

With Thordis Arrhenius, Elke Krasny, Christina Pech, Meike Schalk, and Roemer van Toorn.

Time Schedule

Wednesday, 20th February

  • 13.00 Checking in, coffee at the kitchen on level 6, KTH School of Architecture
  • 13.15 – 15:00 Welcome and Seminar Lecture, Architectural Exhibitionism, with presentations by Thordis Arrhenius, Elke Krasny, Christina Pech, Meike Schalk, and Roemer van Toorn on their curating and exhibition experiences.Large space, level 6
  • 15.00 – 15:30 Coffee break
  • 15.30 – 17:15 Editorial session, participants present their work of Task 2 (5-10 min), followed by roundtable discussions, in two groups, with feedback by two or three editors, with Thordis Arrhenius, Elke Krasny, Christina Pech, Meike Schalk, Roemer van Toorn.KTH-A, level 6, conference room and meeting room

Thursday, 21st February

  • 9:30 – 12:00 Editorial session continues (including break), participants give short individual presentations (5-10 min) of their work on Task 2, followed by roundtable discussions in two groups and feedback by two or three editors, with Thordis Arrhenius, Elke Krasny, Christina Pech, Meike Schalk, Roemer van Toorn.KTH-A, level 6, conference room and meeting room
  • 12:00 – 13:30 Lunch break and relocation to ArkDes, Skeppsholmen, Exercisplan.
  • 13:30 – 15:30 Walking seminar at ArkDes with Thordis Arrhenius, and Christina Pech
  • 15.30 – 16:00 Coffee break
  • 16:00 – 18:00 Public lecture by Elke Krasny: “Live Curating in Architecture. From Master Houses to Working with a Broken Planet”. Panel discussion including Thodis Arrhenius, Elke Krasny, Christina Pech, Johan Örn, moderated by Roemer van Toorn.
  • 18.00 Dinner (on your own expense) at The National Museum.

Friday, 22 February

  • 9.30 – 12:00 Editorial session continues (including break), participants give short individual presentations (5-10 min) of their work on Task 2 and roundtable discussion in two groups with feedback by two or three editors with Thordis Arrhenius, Elke Krasny, Christina Pech, Meike Schalk, Roemer van Toorn.KTH-A, level 6, conference room and meeting room
  • 12.00 – 14:00 Lunch break
  • 14.00 – 16:00 Higher Seminar with paper presentation by Thordis Arrhenius and Christina Pech including roundtable discussion with all participants.KTH-A, level 2, seminar room.
  • 16.00 Departure

Task

In preparation for the 2nd module of the Communication course “Exhibiting Architecture. The Architecture Exhibition Complex” taking place the 20th, 21st and 23rd of February 2019, at the KTH Stockholm, we like you to design and upload a draft exhibition design concept taking your own research as the topic.

While in the first module (last November) our attention was focused upon – in the editorial meetings – how you as researcher stage your message; how your point of view (approach) about a specific research topic – through a plot (intrigue) – can be mediated (https://communicationsresarc.net/01-publishing/), we like to ask you – for the 2nd module – to prepare and upload to the communications ResArc website by Monday the 18th of February your conceptual exhibition design that mediates (by choice of media and display) what your research is concerned with.

Your individual research exhibition proposal includes a spatial design (that you can present through drawings, posters, models, plans, section, photomontage, installation, film, and/or otherwise), while you also indicate how research content (as outlined in the 1st module) is curated through exhibition design formats. In other words – how does your exhibition design mediates its content to an audience, stages the message of your research is what we are after.

Keep in mind that the choice of spatial elements such as walls, frames, rooms, plinths, objects, podiums, screens, props, floor, ceiling, banners and choice of light) can play an essential role mediating your content, but also how these spatial elements orchestrate the exhibition space; allow and create certain narrative trajectories (frontal background, in the passing, etc) – imagine your exhibition to be staged in a particular site, or exhibition space.

Each of your initial exhibition concepts (drafts) we will further developed in the editorial meetings during module 2 together with experts having curated architecture exhibition formats and researched for, about and through exhibitions: Elke Krasny, Thordis Arrhenius and Christina Pech.

Recommended Reading list

For Thursday 21st feb, Walking seminar

  • Claire Bishop, Radical Museologyhttps://monoskop.org/images/5/5c/Bishop_Claire_Radical_Museology.pdf
  • Lea- Catherina Szackahttps://www.oasejournal.nl/en/Issues/88/The1980ArchitectureBiennale#014
  • James Voorhies, Beyond Objecthood: The Exhibition as a Critical Form since 1968 (pdf on Communication homepage)
  • Anna Tsing: Earth Stalked by Man (pdf on Communication homepage)
  • Barry Bergdoll: In the Wake of Rising Currents: The Activist Exhibition https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41765386.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
  • Elke Krasny: Caring Activismhttp://www.elkekrasny.at/archives/520

For Thursday 21st feb, open lecture and panel discussion:

  • Anna Tsing: Earth Stalked by Man (pdf on Communication homepage)
  • Barry Bergdoll: In the Wake of Rising Currents: The Activist Exhibitionhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/41765386.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
  • Elke Krasny: Caring Activism http://www.elkekrasny.at/archives/520

For Friday 22nd feb, higher seminar

Further resources: Architecture Exhibitions, a short bibliography on curating architecture exhibitions

  • Triple Bond. Essays on Art, Architecture and museums, Wouter Davidts, 2018.
  • The Exhibitionary Complex. Exhibition, Apparatus, and media from Kulturhuset to the Centre Pompidou, 1963 – 1977, Kim West, 2017.
  • A brief history of curating, Hans Ulrich Obrist, with interviews with Anne d’Harnoncourt, Walter Hopps, Pontus Hulten, Jean Leering, Franz Meyer, Harald Szeeman, 2016.
  • Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture, edited by Thordis Arrhenius, Mari lending, Wallis Miller, Jeremie Michael McGowan. With contributions by Thordis Arrhenius, Mari Lending, Wallis Miller, jeremie Michael McGowan, Felicity D. Scott, Martin Braathen, Helena Mattsson, Natalie Hope O’Donnell, Daniel Birnbaum, Sven Olov Wallenstein, Lothar Diem, Wenche Volle, Wallis Miller, Victor Plahte Tschudl, Ines Weizman, Jorge Otero-Pallos, 2014.
  • Barry Bergdoll lectures A.W. Mellon lectures: Out of Site in Plain View: a history of Exhibiting Architecture since 1750, 2013.
  • Showing and producing architecture, Oase 88. With contributions by Christophe Van Gerrewey, Tom Vandeputte, Véronique Patteeuw, Eszter Steierhoffer, Léa-Catherine Szacka, Stefaan Vervoort, Tina Di Carlo, Maarten Liefooghe, Joseph Grima, Tom Vandeputte, Common Room, Tom Vandeputte, Rotor, Marianne Mueller, Geert Bekaert, Anne Dessing, 2012.
  • Environments and Counter-Environments, Italy, the new domestic landscape, Peter Lang, Luca Molinari, Mark Wasiuta, 2013.
  • Curating Architecture, Magazine Log, Tina De Carlo, Cynthia Davidson, 2010.
  • Spaces of Experience: Art Gallery Interiors from 1800 to 2000, Charlotte Klonk, 2009.
  • Curating Architecture, Andrea Philips, 2008.
  • The Art of the Architecture Exhibitions, edited by Kristin Feireiss. With contributions by Jean Louis Cohen, Catherine David, Elizabeth Diller, Massimliano Fuksas, Bart Lootsma, Hani Rashid, 2001.

Curational work, catalogues and Contemporary Architecture research exhibitions and curators

  • Beatriz Colomina. She curated a series of international exhibitions, based on oral and archival research, as interface to communicate research to a wider audience with physical installations, digital platforms and new forms of publication. These exhibitions, which traveled to multiple international locations, including: Clip/Stamp/Fold (2006), Playboy Architecture (2012) and Radical Pedagogies (2014). Colomina was the chief curator of Curated by Vienna: The Century of the Bed, a show involving a network of 22 art galleries in Vienna in 2014. Most recently, she was co-curator (with Mark Wigley) of the third Istanbul Design Biennial (2016) on the theme Are We Human? The Design of the Species and contributed an installation on the question of social media to the inaugural biennale of Architecture and Urbanism in Seoul.
  • Stefano Boeri has been curator in several international architectural exhibitions. In 1997 he is Managing Curator of the Architecture section for La Triennale di Milano. Since 2007 he has been the creator and director of Festarch, an international architecture festival organized by Abitare Magazine that takes place in Cagliari and Perugia until 2012 and hosts contemporary architecture main exponents. In 2008 he is the creator and curator of Geodesign, one of the main projects of Turin World Design Capital. In 2012, he curates São Paulo Calling, an international research project on favelas and informal settlements in six contemporary metropolises, which results in an exhibition in São Paulo, Rome, Mumbai, Nairobi, Moscow, Baghdad and Medellin.
  • AMO, Rem Koolhaas, exhibitions on the Chinese city (together with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Hou Hanrou, among others), Fundamentals, the elements of architecture, Venice Biennale, 2014. Manifesta 12, Palermo Atlas, Cultural existence, Palermo, 2017. Content, and much else.
  • Andreas Ruby & Ilka Ruby, exhibitions on Lacaton Vassal, Together! At Vitra Museum, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FfItrashik&feature=youtu.be
  • ArkDes, Kieran Long, Christina Pech, V & A.
  • Design Museum, London. Deyan Sudjic
  • KW Berlin
  • Architektur Zentrum Wien, Elke Krasny, Ditemas Steiner, Angelika Fitz
  • Nai, The Netherlands, Kristien Feireis, Aron Betsky
  • Venice Biennale, and its different Architecture Exhibitions (including one by Giancarlo de Carlo).
  • Milan, Triennale
  • Forensic Architecture exhibitions, among them Turner price.
  • Kristien Feireiss, Nai, the Netherlands, and Aedes, Berlin (see also publication list).
  • Aron Bestky, Michael Hays, Diller & Scofidio exhibition.
  • Jean Louis Cohen, Architecture museum, Paris, France Pavilion Biennale, 2014.
  • Archilab, Frac Center, Orléans, curators Frederique Migayrou and Marie Ange Brayer.
  • Centre Pompidou, Paris
  • MoMa, New York, Martino Stierli, Pedro Delgado
  • Storefront, New York
  • Savvy, Berlin
  • HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Berlin
  • Architectural Association, London

Biographies

Thordis Arrhenius is an architect and architectural researcher with a strong engagement in contemporary architectural and urban practice and their theories. Her teaching and research is characterized by a dedication to contemporary critical issues in heritage and urbanism where the historical perspective informs actions and strategies. Arrhenius’ research interests concern the exhibition of architecture in mass culture, the relation between architecture and the museum, and the curatorial aspects of preservation. Recent research projects investigate the role of the architectural exhibition in the reception of modern architecture in Scandinavia, the historiography of conservation, and the strategy of alteration and its architectural and theoretical implications. Under the working title Restoring the Welfare State she is at present developing a cross-disciplinary project on the welfare-state, its cultures, politics, materials and agents, that aims, through study the ‘making’ of the welfare state, to contribute to the understanding of how the material heritage from the post-war period today is valued. Arrhenius has an international profile in teaching, publication, and research dissemination. She has been appointed full-time professor in Culture Heritage at the Department of Social Change and Culture (ISAK), Linköping University Sweden (2015-2018) were she directed a new research platform in modern heritage. She has been appointed professor in Architectural History and Conservation at the Institute of Form, Theory and History, Oslo School of Architecture (2007-2014) where she initiated in collaboration Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies (OCCAS, http://occas.aho.no) and directed the international research project Place and Displacement: Exhibiting Architecture (2011-2014) funded by the Norwegian Research Council as well as the research project Mediated Architecture; the Exhibition as a Discursive Field with the Swedish Architecture Museum (Arkdes) funded by the Swedish Art Council (2012-2014).

Elke Krasny is a curator, cultural theorist, urban researcher and writer. She is professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria. Her theoretical and curatorial work is firmly rooted in socially engaged art and spatial practices, urban epistemology, post-colonial theory, and feminist historiography. In her curatorial practice she aims to contribute to debate in these fields through forging experimental post-disciplinary alliances between research, teaching, curating, and writing. She has been City of Vienna Visiting Professor 2014, Urban culture, public space and ways of life – Everday life and scientific insights, Interdisciplinary Centre for Urban Culture and Public Space, Vienna University of Technology and 2013 Visiting Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuernberg, Master Architecture and Urban Research. In 2006 she was Visiting Professor at the University of Bremen; in 2011 curator-in-residence at the Hongkong Community Museum Project; 2012 artist-in-residence at the Audain Gallery, Simon Fraser University Vancouver and Visiting Scholar at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal. She has edited and authored a number of books on architecture, urbanism, and feminist historiography. Her writing has been published widely in edited volumes, exhibition catalogues and magazines. Exhibitions she curated include The Force is in the Mind. The Making of Architecture at the Architecture Centre Vienna (Architekturzentrum Wien), Penser tout Haut. Faire l’Architecture at the Centre de Design de l’UQAM in Montréal and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Hongkong City Telling, and Mapping the Everyday: Neighborhood Claims for the Future at the Audain Gallery in Vancouver. In 2012 her exhibition Hands-on Urbanism 1850-2012. The Right to Green was presented at the Architecture Centre Vienna and subsequently at the Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2012.

Christina Pech is an architectural historian, acting research coordinator at the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design (ArkDes) and lecturer at the KTH School of Architecture. She is scientific curator of the forthcoming permanent exhibition on architecture in Sweden at ArkDes and pursues a research project funded by the Swedish Arts Council.

Current research interest revolves around the historiography and theory of Swedish modern architecture as well as the international development of exhibiting, collecting and archiving institutions of architecture (both funded by the Swedish Arts Council). Another strand of research examines the interrelatedness of scientific practice, architectural design and urban development in the modern era, investigated within the framework of a research fellowship at the Brussels Center for Urban studies (2017-2018) and presented in the recent article Vetenskapens moderna landskap (with Monica Sand, Plan Journal 2018). Distant as the two orientations may seem, they share the interest in architecture’s role for the processes of modernization and its institutionalization. Teaching activities include a survey course on architectural history and theory in the basic level and an experimental studio engagement in the advanced level.

Meike Schalk is an architect and associate professor of Urban Studies and Urban Theory at KTH School of Architecture. She is head of the doctoral programs in Architecture; and in Art, Technology and Design, a collaboration of KTH with Konstfack, the University of Arts, Crafts and Design. Since 2015, she has been the director of the strong research environment Architecture in Effect: Rethinking the Social. While her first discipline is Architecture, she holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Aesthetics of Landscape Architecture from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 2007. Schalk was co-founder of the feminist architecture teaching and research group FATALE and is part of the nonprofit association Action Archive dedicated to urban research through approaches of oral history and participatory historiography. Her recent publications include Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice: Materialisms, Activisms, Dialogues, Pedagogies, Projections, co-edited with Thérèse Kristiansson and Ramia Mazé, 2017.

Roemer van Toorn is an architect, writer, educator, curator and photographer in the field of architecture and cultural studies. He is also the Architecture Theory professor at the Umeå School of Architecture. He has been in charge of the History and Theory program, was director of publications, exhibitions and the PhD research school at the Berlage Institute. He has lectured and written extensively about architecture and has been the editor of several magazines and publications internationally. Recently he finalized, with the editorial team of the Strong Research Environment Architecture in Effect, Stockholm, the Formas funded double volume research publication “Rethinking the Social”, and “After Effect”, Actar Publishers, 2018. His photography work has been exhibited in Winnipeg, Los Angeles and was part of the exhibition Cities on the Move curated by Hou Hanru and Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Currently he is finishing his forthcoming publication Making Architecture Politically. From Fresh Conservatism to Aesthetics as Form of Politics, while finalizing his text-image book the Society of The And. (www.roemervantoorn.com).