#04—Architecture and its boundaries 🏛
You are either included or excluded, there is not much space in between. This issue aims to shed light on opportunities architecture has to tear down old patterns for the sake of inclusiveness.
The relationship between inside and outside
Marta Dyachenko’s solo exhibition “:re” at Dittrich & Schlechtriem
Marta Dyachenko explores the question of how important the moment or connection between, destruction and reconstruction is. In her current solo show, the artist works with decontextualised elements such as concrete elements and struts made of shiny, polished steel. These compositions take on a new meaning in the gallery context and act as the seeds of new beginnings and constructions.
In doing so, Marta Dyachenko moves between monument and rebuilding, demolition and memory, war and healing, creating miniatures of new worlds, emblems of a new class of productive forces of the Anthropocene, colliding them with lost visions of past futures to spark a new present.
In our opinion, another interesting point in Dyachenko's work, is the play with materials and the further handling of their states. Viewers who are familiar with carpentry, bricklaying or scaffolding immediately see superficial references in her choice of different materials. Further processing of such materials creates a clear break from the initial purpose of the underlying craft. However, viewers without such knowledge unmistakably place her sculptures in such construction site contexts. This ambiguity in her artistic practice inevitably leads to a closer examination between viewer and work.
Our friend and journalist Alicja Schindler visited the artist in her studio and wrote a portrait for ZEIT online.
:re the first solo show of Marta Dyachenko at Dittrich & Schlechtriem. The exhibition is on view until April 22, 2023 in Berlin (Maps).
Jeewi Lee’s “PALIMPSEST. SEGMENTS OF RE-ENSCRIPTION” at The German Architecture Center DAZ
Among others this exhibition shows weathered roof tiles turned into a floor painting which in turn perfectly illustrates how influences from exposure to the elements can be perpetuated on such materials since this makes every tile unique. Segments of traditional Hanji paper floors, which Lee took from old Korean homes, hang from the ceiling as floor plans of individual rooms in their original size and create a multi-layered spatial image.
Jeewi Lee‘s work is an aesthetic archive of memory, a manifestation of use, function, and routines. The inscriptions of age and the tales encoded in buildings and materials constitute and enrich their identities and thus their significance for the society.
Architecture is a socially distinctive sign because it reveals the divergence between integration and isolation. Through the use of architectural fragments, it becomes visible that certain elements of contemporary status symbols were accessible to everyone in the recent past. It is all about the stories of the individual objects that Lee reveals through idiosyncratic compositions. At the same time, it becomes palpable how rudimentary architecture once was or still can be. Depending on where you are - geographically or socially.
PALIMPSEST. SEGMENTS OF RE-ENSCRIPTION by Jeewi Lee, at DAZ (Deutsches Architektur Zentrum) until April 16, 2023 in Berlin (Maps).
Sung Tieu. “No Jobs, No Country” at n.b.k. showroom
Tieu’s exhibition at n.b.k. focuses on “Objekt Gehrenseestrasse,” one of the largest dormitory complexes in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) built in the early 1980s in Berlin-Lichtenberg. The housing complex consists of nine identical Plattenbau structures built from prefabricated concrete slabs. From 1982 to 1989, it was predominantly used to house GDR contract workers, particularly from Vietnam, who lived under strict regulations and constant supervision in around five square meters of living space per person. Tieu herself lived in one of the blocks from 1994 to 1997.
After German Reunification, the complex provided temporary housing for asylum seekers and later, refugees from regions including former Yugoslavia and the Middle East. Derelict since 2003, the buildings are currently scheduled for demolition with a new residential and commercial district titled “Quartier Gehrenseestrasse“ to be constructed in its place.
The steel sculpture titled Block G (Gehrenseestrasse, Berlin) is based on the floorplan of the eponymous building and filled with soil from its immediate surroundings. This is complemented by a spatial intervention in which a wall has been perforated to trace the outlines of a window behind it. While this intervention produces a direct surgical cut to open the built space of the gallery, the recesses in the work Form (for Residence Permit) point to a void to be filled.
Sung Tieu. No Jobs, No Country at n.b.k. showroom up until May 7, 2023 in Berlin (Maps).
Recently noticed 🎣
Can we get you anything else?
🏛 If you want to feed your dreams with plenty of interesting architectural thinking, treat yourself to a night embedded in the Bauhaus context.
🏛 Since its inception A-Z West has functioned as an evolving testing ground for living—a place in which space, objects, and acts of living all intertwine into a single ongoing investigation into what it means to exist and participate in our culture today.
🏛 When you think of architecture in music, you might associate it with the Berlin band Einstürzende Neubauten. The music video for “Letztes Biest” is an exciting part of a musical synthesis of the arts.
🏛 In a strange way, controlled demolitions of large buildings are very beautiful to watch. The human megalomania that is expressed crudely in such projects is very frustrating. Live promo video about the demolition of the Seattle Kingdome from the responsible company CDI .
🏛 For an unspecified reason, the Earth is now uninhabitable, so this rock is the new home of humanity. Check out Final Earth 2. A colony management and city builder game set in the future. Here you can listen even to the meditative soundtrack.
🥔Hit us up for a German version🥔
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