Afternoon lecture by Carson Chan

While the afternoon sun streamed throughout the pavilion we had the pleasure to present a telephone lecture by architecture writer and curator Carson Chan based in Berlin. He was discussing how to display and discuss architecture within the frames of an exhibition space. The conventions of architectural representations on display are strongly challenged by the current Biennale curated by Kazuyo Sejima, where many of the works create spatial atmospheres, conditions and subjective associations rather than representing built work on display. Carson also argued in his lecture that architecture, and related fields, can be discussed and exhibited without having to exhibit reproductions of built work. As a director of the project space Program in Berlin, Carson Chan constantly aims to test the disiplinary boundaries of architecture through collaborations with other fields by exploring ideas through exhibitions, performances and workshops. 0047 had the pleasure to host a double exhibition by Carson Chan this spring and these two shows formed the content of Chan's lecture.

Sold out

All the books we brought with us from Oslo are now sold out, and Sandra Herrera became the lucky owner of the last copies of Europan 9 and Northern Experiments. The books published by 0047 are still available at our webshop.

Potential architecture

Lectures on Saturday started with 0047 director Espen Røyseland talking about the International Collection of Potential Architecture. An online user based database of architectural efforts and designs which remain unrealised, the collection gives visibility to alternative, speculative futures through projects that for a variety of reasons have never seen the light of the day. To join please visit www.potentialarchitecture.net and create a user account to upload your projects.

People meet (and talk and drink) in architecture

0047 improvised an after work party for all the staff working in the pavilions. It was nice seeing the faces of the different nationalities represented in the Giardini park and not just the buildings. People from the Russian, Slovakian, British, Greek, Danish and Japanese pavilions were showing up and all enjoyed drinks and talk.

Kitchen stories

The greenhouse has been transformed into a kitchen and cantina, and nothing seemed more natural than to pile up mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and bread and some bottles of wine.

Connecting Oslo and Berlin via Venice and Reykjavik

Just now german graphic designer Ariane Spanier is talking about her work and cooperations with 0047.

Kids chill in architecture

The kids love the calmness of the pavilion and the big comfy sitting donut.

After work party

We are having an after work party today.

British conversations

Ingrid from 0047 talks with Alex Whitby from British Council about 0047’s coming exhibition in London.

On dreams and needs

Kelly Doran from LRA presented "Repositioning the Remote" (a strategy aiming to turn Vardø into the "green tool" in development of the North) to an audience, and received some questions and comments. Most notably, a Norwegian in attendance asked "do you think this can actually happen in Norway, or is this just a dream?" Kelly answered he felt that their strategy is not only a possibility, but something that needs to happen in Vardø and Norway.

Nomadic Nuuk

Knut Eirik Dahl gave a lecture from Tromsø on Dahl & Uhre's project in Nuuk, Greenland. The tearing down of Blok P and the Tuujuk area will set off an unprecedented nomadic activity in Nuuk coinciding with economic and political transformations happening in Greenland.

Talking high north

In the afternoon we have lectures held in the media lounge. Today Knut Eirik Dahl, architect and professor for urbanism in Oslo, talked about his project in Nuuk, Greenland. Canadian architect Kelly Doran lectured about the winning Europan project in Vardø, Norway.

Relations between nature and architecture

Wednesday morning surprises us with heavy rain and thunderstorm. Arriving at the pavilion the space surprises us by being flooded. Over night the rain has made its way through the roof because along the trees it is left open. The trunks now look even more like sculptures and open a dialogue between nature and architecture once more. The water and earth from outside have been leaking into the pavilion over night and make the architecture almost invisible.

People meeting 0047

The visitors we welcome encourage us to keep the reception desk and publications. Since we moved the audio guide for "Stay in touch" next to it this turns out to be a meeting spot. The ring prooved itself as a chill-out-zone so we are not surprised people find themselves sleeping there very soon.

Moving architecture

Our first day begins motivated: We remove a lot of things from the scene to create an atmosphere that comes near to what we are usually working with in Oslo. A reception welcomes the visitors for a first hello and introduces them to our publications. We sit just behind it working so that we can talk to everybody, answer questions and have an eye on the media lounge as well. The media lounge is also something new we use for our week. Since the idea of holding the lectures inside of the ring worked out so well, we took it a step further and put a low table into it. We installed the TV-screen on top of it and fed the table with examples of our books. For the actual working space of "At work with" we reduce the number of tables to two and turn the gardening house into our kitchen and staff-room. Erik’s "green architecture" perfectly agrees with this idea because it makes us feel cozy in there and has the coffee in-between even tasting better.

To-do list

This is our programme for the week.

At work with 0047

When everyone else flees the scene, architecture notables talk about scandal, and Nordic relations are ice cold, 0047 moves in to the epicenter of it all, the Fehn pavilion, for a week long architecture residency. Concept: perform a cross section of 0047’s projects in process and be caretaker of the pavilion (all maintenance included).

Good night

Now night finally falls on the Nordic pavillion. It will be a good next week too.

Nordic pavillion

As the last in our series of re-enacted Biennale pavilions, we have the Nordic pavillion, in which we loosely hang a strip of drawings along two side walls.

Q

This was by far the quickest pavillion to make. It took about one minute to lift the grenhouse over the existing model and take a picture. The Danish pavillion is called Q&A (questions and answers). All we can attempt to do is to barely raise questions.

100 houses

The exhibition in the Estonian national pavillion is called 100 houses, and displays a grid of models for single family houses in the same scale. We only made it to 25 units, out of which our land is made.

Text

Time for writing some instructions to our recidency inheritors. There is a lot of information we have to pass on, regarding how to manage the pavillion, keys and contacts, blogging instructions, general useful observations.

Traces

The properties of the structure are more evident when it is destroyed.

Falling, Ishigami style

Releasing. Gracious and coordinated as in a renaissance dance.

Elevating

Slowly lifting. Concentrating.

Architecture as air

We set up to perform Junya Ishigami's beautiful, thin and immediately collapsed structure Architecture as air, in the approximate dimensions 120 by 120 by 120 cm. The structure is so thin it can hardly be seen. Ishigamis original work fell after a few hours. We are sure ours will fall quicker.

Flimsy

We involve Moritz, Federico and Céline Brunko as volunteers for the micro pavillion project. Bribed with a glass of wine, they start off producing structure out of spaghetti.

Now interview

In the greenhouse, there is a screen with an interview with Erik Wingquist and Anders Johansson from Testbedstudio, with a chair for one listener, as is made by Hans Ulrich Obrist for the Now interviews. Please note that 3.40 into the film, our collegue Tor Lindstrand joins by telephone.

Guest lecture

Yesterday, Moritz Holenstein and Federico Rossi, former exchange students at the Scool of Arcitecture in Stockholm came by. We invited them to hold a lecture about a residential project they made there, and Federico drove home to Como overnight just in order to pick up a presentation. Here is a film with the ambience of the lecture.

Full occupation

Meanwhile, the lounge starts to be fully occupied.

Belgian pavillion

The Belgian pavillion displays segments of different surfaces of a building, that has been subject to wear.

Cloudscapes

Wolfgang gives us many advises on how to get the smoke to behave better. We try to let the smoke out through a tube to reduce its impulse. We try to wet the floor surface and have a warm light in the ceiling to control the height level of the smoke.

Dr. Kessling meets Dr. Johansson

The main project for our last day here will be to enact a number of pavillions in the Biennale. We will do this as low budget and very expedient paraphrases or miniature tributes, that will operate as a critical regionalism within our work. Besides being challenging to stage them, we hope that it will reveal something of the nature of these installations. We start with the project Cloudscapes, where a winding staricase is covered with smoke. Just as we are trying to get our cheap smoke machine to produce enough smoke for the greenhouse, a very interested spectator turns up, and starts to take loads of pictures. It turns out that it is Dr. Wolfgang Kessling from Transsolar, the German climate engineering firm who together with Japanese Tetsuo Kondo has made the project.

Sculptor

We talk a bit with Tobias Eder, sculptor from Freiburg.

Round

We again move the lounge couch so that it forms a large ring.

Clean thoughts

As it is Testbedstudios last day as residents in the pavillion, we start to sweep the floor. It is a good way to start focusing on the day's work.

How do you unlock the pavilion

It is a little bit complicated, and specially designed by Sverre Fehn.