Saturday, 14 February 2009

Jürgen Hasse, University of Frankfurt a. M. | Frankfurt

Jürgen Hasse was born in 1949. He is:is a professor at the Institute of Human Geography at Johan Wolfgang von Goethe University in Frankfurt. His main interest is focused on phenomenology in geography, the philosophical view on man and nature and the aestetisation of urban space. He has written many books concerning this subject, Findings of the Mind. A Phenomenological Revision of Everyday Life (Fundsachen der Sinne. Eine phänomenologishe Revision alltäglichen Erlebens), Overseen Space (Übersehene Räume) og Unrecorded Habitat. Lifeforms on the Edge of Society (Unbedachtes Wohnen. Lebensformen an verdeckten Rändern der Gesellschaft).

Hasse´s lecture will touch upon how illuminating the city adresses reinventing the public space of cities. Cities are full of signs which people interpret intellectually, but they also perceive on a different level, closely connected to the senses. But how do we feel and think of the conscious aestetification of the city?

http://www.geo.uni-frankfurt.de/ifh/Personen/hasse/

Ellinor Coombs, Guerilla Lighting | London

Ellinor Coombs was born 1972, trained in Museum and Exhibition Design before her education as a Lighting Designer. She works for the british company BDP which offers specialized counseling in lighting design as well as architecture. She has worked on several projects for BDP, and project managed and collaborated under the flags of Guerilla Lighting – a platform created by BDP for raising the awareness of good lighting and the importance of professional design to create sustainable lighting solutions. The Guerilla Lighting team have been active with workshops in different cities of Europe where various local people have participated in lighting urban spaces and buildings, often in connection with design or architecturefestivals such as Helsinki Design Days last October. They have been in Birmingham, Glasgow and Dublin, cities known for other than traditional beautiful urban settings and recreated old industry and harbour areas – all fresh projects which Coombs will present at the conference.

http://guerrillalighting.net/

Deike Canzler, Ljusarkitektur P & Ö AB | Stockholm

Deike Canzler (b. 1979) is educated both as an architect and a lighting designer. She works at Ljusarkitektur P&Ö in Stockholm, the biggest light design company in Scandinavia. Ljusarkitektur was founded by Kai Piippo and Niklas Ödmann in 1991 and has been an important factor in developing the growing field of light design in architectural and urban context, both with built projects, education and international engagement in workshops etc. and have received international prices for various projects such as the Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm.

Canzler will present new projects from Ljusarkitektur with emphasis on the character and quality of the nordic light, and stressing the importance of good lighting in the man-made environment. Her work include the ongoing exterior lighting for a residential project “Strandkanten” in Tromsö, Norway, the lighting design of Axeltorv in Copenhagen, the winning of a competition for a new residential development in the harbour area of Göteborg, Sweden. She has previously worked with the light and sound for the masterplan of Djurgården in Stockholm and at the Light Festival in Kalmar.

http://www.ljusarkitektur.se/

Alexander Stublic, Mader Stublic Wiermann | Berlin

(b. 1967) majored in media theory, media art and philosophy. He is one of the three founders of Mader-Stublic-Wiermann group which has existed since the year 2000 and is based in Berlin. The group consists of two media artists, Holger Mader and Alexander Stublic, and the architect Heike Wiermann. Their central theme is to investigate mechanisms of perception in public space. By extending architecture as a stereoscopic medium to embrace time-bound media - such as light, video and sound - they create novel possibilities in experiencing urban environments.

Alexander Stublic will present three architectural related projects that pursue questions as time-bound artistic contents under site-specific conditions and effects on the urban environment. The projects are three different approaches to blur the borders and to build transitions spanning from the "twists and turns" at the Uniqa Tower in Vienna, the play with "folded space" at SESC Pompéia in São Paulo and an ongoing project called "cam" for the Chelsea Art Museum in New York.

http://www.webblick.de

Roger Narboni, Concepto, ACE, PLDA | Bagneux

(b. 1953) is educated in the different fields of electronics and fine art. In the year 1988 he founded the lighting office CONCEPTO which is based just outside Paris, and has worked on numerous projects of very different scale regarding architectural lighting in landscape, urban settings and buildings. Amongst them are the Sévre river landscape in Niort, the lighting of the Reims Cathedral and Citroën Design Center near Paris. He is the creator of a new discipline called Light Urbanism and has worked on master plans for over 100 cities in France and abroad as well as written many books on the subject.

Narboni is in his lecture going to adress the relation of water to light, both natural and artificial, where reflection and refraction, natural movement and symbolism is used to create poetics and beautiful water nightscapes in urban conditions as well as in natural environment. He will speak of the nocturnal landscape illumination project of the Rion Antirion Bridge at Corinth in Greece, the nighttime riverscape of the Garonne river surroundings in Toulouse, and a recently finished project in Hangzhou in China using the new led technology for revealing the existing beauty of landscape and architecture of the site, plus a proposal for the lighting of 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

(source: Lighting Academy)

http://www.ace-fr.org

Jeroen Everaert, Mothership | Rotterdam

Jeroen Everaert (b. 1976) is a member of a big group of different artists based in Rotterdam called the Mothership. The company specializes in producing work of art for clients and artists, building a bridge between the art world and the business community.
Amongst the many interesting projects they have realized is the light installation Bombardment Periphery which Everaert produced for the City of Rotterdam at the request of the mayor for the festival of Rotterdam last year. Some 128 light cannons were pionted towards the sky and thus projected the lines of the city as it was before the great bombardment in the second world war.

The ephimeral images in the night sky evoke the memories of the people of the city as it was before the war, and at the same time it was mediated into the minds of the younger citizens. Now the inhabitants of Reykjavik can experience this project and turn their attention to the fact that cities are both houses and streets – as well as our collective memory of the events that occur in the city.

http://www.EnterTheMothership.com/

Friday, 25 April 2008

Ólafur Elíasson | Berlin/Copenhagen                        transcript

Olafur Eliasson, born in Copenhagen in 1967 to Icelandic parents, studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In 1995 he established Studio Olafur Eliasson in Berlin, a laboratory for spatial research.

Eliasson represented Denmark at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003 and later that year installed The Weather Project in the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern, London. More recent exhibition venues include Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. A large survey of Eliasson’s work will be shown at The Museum of Modern Art in New York and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center from April to June 2008.

Eliasson has engaged in a number of projects in public space, including his intervention Green River, carried out in various cities between 1998 and 2001; The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2007, a temporary pavilion situated in Kensington Gardens, London, designed with Kjetil Thorsen; The Other Wall, 2004-08, a large-scale installation in the foyer of the new Oslo Opera House; The New York City Waterfalls, expected launch date June 2008; and The Icelandic National Concert and Conference Centre, Reykjavik, for which he and his studio have developed the ‘quasi brick’ façades in collaboration with Henning Larsen Architects.

http://www.olafureliasson.net

Christopher Marcinkoski, Field Operations | New York                          interview

field operations is a leading-edge landscape architecture and urban design practice based in New York City. Serving an international clientele, the practice is renowned for strong contemporary design across a variety of high-profile project types and scales.

Christopher Marcinkoski is a Senior Associate at field operations whose work focuses on large-scale urban redevelopment projects. Mr. Marcinkoski is currently leading the development of the 2,000-acre San Juan Knowledge Corridor which includes the planning and design of an 80-acre Science City district incorporating more than 7 million sq. ft. of new mixed use program in the heart of San Juan, Puerto Rico; the transformation and master plan of a 4,500-acre former penal farm in to one of the world's largest urban parks in Memphis, Tennessee; and the development of a 500 acre eco-resort on the north-east coast of Brazil. In 2004, he was awarded the prestigious SOM Foundation Fellowship for Urban Design and an International Bauhaus Award in Dessau, Germany for his research into Combinatory Urbanisms. His design work and research has been exhibited internationally in Germany, Scotland, China and South Korea, as well as in the U.S. Mr. Marcinkoski has taught design studios at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University and the Boston Architectural College and is co-editor of the recently published Yale Architectural Journal: Perspecta 38 | architecture after all (MIT, 2006).

http://www.fieldoperations.net

Saturday, 10 May 2008

Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg, HafenCity Hamburg                          interview

Jürgen Bruns-Berentelg has been CEO of HafenCity Hamburg GmbH in Hamburg, Germany since 2003 and in that position is responsible for the development management of one of Europe’s largest inner-city and urban waterfront development projects. Among other positions, he has previously been a member of the board of a major real estate company in Hamburg; he has also worked as Managing Director in Germany for New York-based real estate developer Tishman Speyer in Berlin, among others, on Potsdamer Platz Sony Center project. He was educated as geographer and real estate economist in Germany and the Netherlands.

Bruns-Berentelg is co-editor of the Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal (London) and lectures and writes intensively on a number of aspects of large scale urban developments projects, e.g. risk structures, collective goods aspects and market development, and urban planning.

HafenCity Hamburg is one of the most important inner-city development projects in Europe, which will enlarge Hamburg's downtown area by 40% within 20 years. This generates not only 10 km of a new public water line but additionally, due to the lift of the area caused by flood protection measures, a new topography, and consequently a new definition of public and private spaces. In HafenCity, about two million square meters GFA are being built with a mixture of residential (33%), business (53%), retail, touristic, educational (schools and HafenCity University) and cultural uses. Forty thousand people will work in HafenCity, about 12,000 people will live here and far more will be visitors on a daily basis.

Major cultural institutions are under development, e g. the Elbphilharmonie, a concert hall with 2,200 seats, a newly designed building by Herzog & de Meuron on top of an existing storage building, an international maritime museum to be opened in summer 2008, and a spectacular science center by Rem Koolhaas (OMA) to be finished in 2012.

http://www.hafencity.com

West 8 urban design and landscape architecture b.v. was founded in 1987 by its principal Adriaan Geuze as an international team of architects, landscape architects, urban designers and industrial engineers, designing landscape interventions, urban plans, waterfront projects, squares, parks and gardens. Under Geuze's direction, this diverse design team of 50 staff who comprise West 8 has established itself as a leading landscape and urban design practice within Europe. With a multi-disciplinary approach to complex design issues, West 8 has extensive experience in large-scale urban planning, urban design and landscaping. Working on an international level from its start, West 8 has developed projects all over the world in places such as Copenhagen, Paris, London, Zurich, Vienna, New York, Madrid and Toronto.

West 8 acknowledges that the realization of an urban masterplan or landscape design is a long-term process. It is not a readymade object, but accumulates richness and beauty through time. Large-scale interventions in a city require strong and understandable concepts in order to carry unique identities. They always refer to the local context, history, landscape, and surrounding ecology. West 8’s urban designs take advantage of market criteria and political reality. Research, exploitation of parameters and social political implementation enrich their design and give them a multi-level quality. The aim is the development of an urban identity, carrying a spirit that will guide commercial investments. Urban design in a contemporary reality contributes to cultural heritage. Such knowledge is gained through experience, through trial and error, through taking risks, and going beyond traditional solutions. This awareness drives West 8’s commitment and enthusiasm to creating world-class designs.

Martin Biewenga received his Masters in Urban Design from the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands in 1996. Before joining West 8 Mr. Biewenga practiced at Atelier Quadrat in Rotterdam from 1995-1996. Since 1996 Mr. Biewenga worked as a project director on large scale projects for West 8, and since 2003 he serves as partner for West 8.
Mr. Biewenga has led international design teams and worked on large scale urban designs, often related to shores and waterfronts such as the design of Watercity Vathorst near Amersfoort, the Netherlands, and Söndre Frihavn, Copenhagen, DK. In doing so Mr. Bienwenga has brought specific engineering experience to West 8. Mr. Biewenga has carried teaching positions at schools and universities such as the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Planning Rotterdam and Amsterdam the Netherlands, Oxford Brooks University and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. As a well respected speaker Mr. Biewenga has recently given lectures at the Tokyo University, the University of Mexico City and Oxford, UK.

http://www.west8.nl

Louise Mielonen Grassov, Gehl Architects, Urban Quality Consultants | Copenhagen                          interview

Louise Mielonen Grassov is an Associate at Gehl Architects, Urban Quality Consultants, Copenhagen.

Gehl Architects is a consulting firm offering expertise in the fields of architecture, urban design, and city planning. The work is based on the human dimension—and how the built environment affects peoples’ use patterns, decisions and well being in the public realm. The character of the lively and widely used public realm is considered as one of the most important keys to quality of life in cities.

Louise has a Master’s Degree in Architecture and Urban Design, and her expertise lies within urban quality analyses, development of strategy plans for existing cities and new town developments, public space plans and programmes. Her international experience includes work in Oslo, Cape Town, Zürich, London, Seattle and most recently in Reykjavik.

http://www.gehlarchitects.dk

Yvonne P. Doderer | Stuttgart                          article

Yvonne P. Doderer is a freelance urban researcher and architect. She is Professor of GenderMediaDesign at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf (Ger), head of the “Office for Transdisciplinary Research and Cultural Production“ in Stuttgart (Ger) and lectures internationally especially within the artistic field. Her main research areas focus on the linkage of urban theories, politics and gender as well as contemporary art. As cultural producer she participated in various international art exhibitions (First Story - Women Building/New Narratives for the 21st Century, Dream City, NowHere e.a.), and as author she contributed to numerous scientific publications, exhibition catalogues and art magazines like the Austrian cultural magazine “springerin.”

Doderer graduated as an Engineer for Architecture and Urban Planning at the University in Stuttgart and awarded a Doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.) with excellence in Political Science at the University of Dortmund, Faculty of Spatial Planning. A member of the Women’s Research Network NRW, she has been visting scholar at the Maison de Sciences de l’Homme in Paris and the Office for Contemporary Art in Norway. Her publications include “Urbane Praktiken” (Monsenstein & Vannerdat, 2003) and “Doing Beyond Gender” (Monsenstein & Vannerdat, 2008).

http://www.transdisciplinary.net

FREEE art collective | London                          interview

Freee is a collective made up of 3 artists, Dave Beech, Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan, who work together on slogans, performances, billboards and publications that challenge the commercial and bureaucratic colonization of the public sphere of opinion formation. Freee occupies the public sphere with works that take sides, speak their mind and divide opinion.

Freee is interested in the traffic between the gallery and the street, between art’s institutions and everyday culture, and between art and politics. Works in the gallery are neither the originals of works that appear on billboard sites nor are they documents of them. Each version is simply another instance of the very same work, like a song performed at various venues, or, more pointedly, like a slogan appearing in a pamphlet, on a badge or in a chant.

Dave Beech studied at Leicester Polytechnic and Royal College of Art. Teaches Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art. Regular contributor to Art Monthly. Co-editor of The Internationaler magazine.

Andy Hewitt studied at North Staffordshire Polytechnic and Royal College of Art. Teaches Fine Art at the University of Wolverhampton. Currently studying for a PhD at Sheffield Hallam University, entitled ‘Socially engaged art practices’.

Mel Jordan studied at Leicester Polytechnic and Birmingham Institute of Art & Design. Teaches Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London and University of Wolverhampton. Co-editor of The Internationaler magazine.

http://www.freee.org.uk/

Vito Acconci | New York                         interview

Vito Acconci was born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1940; he currently lives and works in Brooklyn. Acconci’s early work was fiction and poetry; his last poems reduced words to indices of the writer’s and reader’s travel across the page. In the late 60’s and early 70’s, his first artwork used performance, photos, film and video as instruments of analysis and person-to-person relationships. His audio and video installations of the mid-70’s turned an exhibition space into a community meeting-place. Acconci's architectural games of the early 80’s made performative spaces for viewers, whose activities resulted in the construction and deconstruction of house prototypes.

In the mid-80’s Acconci's work crossed over into architecture, landscape and industrial design; in 1988 he started Acconci Studio, a theoretical design and building workshop. The studio's method is, on one hand, to make new spaces by turning old ones inside-out and upside-down; and, on the other hand, to insert within a site a capsule that morphs and grows out of itself. The studio's tendency is toward left-over sites and outlands, where hypotheses might be buildable and testable. They treat architecture as an occasion for activity; they make spaces fluid, changeable, portable. They have recently completed an artificial island in Graz and an adjustable gallery in New York, a clothing store in Tokyo, a plaza in Memphis, a façade for an elevated subway-station in Coney Island. About to be built is a building perimeter in Toronto and a waterfront look-out in Bristol. The Acconci Studio is currently working on a restaurant and playground in Milan; a library in Leipzig; a visitors’ walkway through a fishing port in Boulogne-sur-mer; and a hamlet of houses and public spaces in the Ardeche; a renovation of a private house in Winter Park.

http://www.acconci.com

Program (part I):
CIA.IS - Center for Icelandic Art in collaboration with Iceland Academy of the Arts (LHÍ) and Nordic House

Christian Schoen (CIA.IS) with
Jóhannes Þórdarson (LHÍ, Dept. for Architecture and Design) and Kristján Steingrímur Jónsson (LHÍ, Dept. for Visual Arts)
Coordinator:
Shauna Laurel Jones (CIA.IS)

Program (part II):
CIA.IS - Center for Icelandic Art in collaboration with Nordic House

Christian Schoen (CIA.IS) with Guja Dögg Hauksdóttir.

Contact:

CIA.IS - Center for Icelandic Art
Hafnarstræti 16
IS-101 Reykjavík
T:+354-562 72 62
F:+354-562 66 56
info@cia.is
www.cia.is

Samson Properties
Portus Group
Goethe-Institut
Icelandic Ministry of Culture
City of Reykjavík

City Planning Department

American Embassy
Radisson SAS Hotel 1919
101 Hotel