Yona Friedman and Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz
16 Apr - 03 Jul 2011
YONA FRIEDMAN AND ECKHARD SCHULZE-FIELITZ
16 April - 3 July, 2011
With Yona Friedman, who lives in Paris, and the Bregenz-based Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz, two of the most prominent proponents of 1960s avant-garde urbanism are invited to the KUB Arena to present their works for the first time ever in a dialogical format. On the basis of urban planning models and extensive theoretical treatises they not only developed visionary approaches to the problems of urban development, but also generated the foundations for a new philosophy of architecture. Since first meeting in 1959, they are still linked by a close friendship, which found its architectural expression in a joint design for a Bridge City over the English Channel (1963).
An important impetus for their intellectual exchange was their membership of the Groupe d’Étude d’Architecture Mobile (GEAM), founded by Friedman in 1958, an association of architects who, in reaction to the architectural challenges posed by industrialization, urbanization, and the resulting housing shortage, investigated mobile forms of architecture. Basing their productions on principles such as mobility, alterability, and flexibility, they developed architectural mega-structures designed to extend above existing cities. The role of the architect here was replaced by a new persona, that of the planner who only provides a frame, a structure, within which future inhabitants can shape their environment as they see fit. For all the diversity of their distinct approaches, their shared interest in adaptable infrastructures, in participation, and in the development of specific communication systems led to a concept of architecture that touched on sociological no less than economic, mathematical, and philosophical issues. Particularly Friedman’s manifesto L’Architecture Mobile (1958), his urban spatial concepts like La Ville Spatiale (1960), Schulze-Fielitz’s Raumstadt (1959), and the latter’s early considerations of such themes as environmental control, sustainability, and the resources shortage were visionary and have subsequently been explored by generations of architects and urban planners.
Yona Friedman (b. 1923) has been working on the development of mobile architectural structures since the 1940s. With Panel Chains (1945) and Movable Boxes (1949) he started by creating simple architectures made from cheap, easily transportable, and custom-made prefabricated materials designed to give a minimum of shelter to those who had been made homeless by the war. Ever since, Friedman has been developing anti-hierarchical, do-it-yourself, individually extendable structures from recycled materials and modules. Convinced that the universe and human nature are neither predictable nor controllable, he has set out in his writings the possibilities of an ideal architecture characterized by the absence of planning, standardization, and logic. Friedman’s projects and ideas on self-organization have met increasing interest in the field of contemporary art in recent years. Consequently, he has become an increasingly important reference point for many artists, and at the same time has been represented in several international exhibitions. At the KUB Arena he will present, among other things, his installation Proteinic Structure—Space Chain (2010), an irregular structure in which fundamental principles of his practice are concentrated.
In contrast to Friedman, Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz (b. 1929) has always also been a practicing architect who knew how to apply the insights of his urban spatial theories in varying forms to a number of projects that were actually realized. The most prominent and largest project with around 900 housing units is the residential estate on the Ach river in Bregenz (with Jakob Albrecht and Gunter Wratzfeld, 1971–1980), which Schulze-Fielitz himself refers to as a “space city that has landed.” While his early works were largely influenced by Mies van der Rohe, he subsequently developed a stronger interest in spatial structures that go beyond “Miesian box architecture.” At the latest with the presentation of his first space city model at the Galerie Van der Loo in Essen in 1960, his work has been characterized by the search for a spatial ordering system—on the analogy of a physical model—consisting of a modulable macromaterial comprising relatively few elementary parts and which, following a definite law of construction, is arbitrarily extendable. Based on the model of the so-called Metaeder, the geometrical nucleus of his space city designs, Eckard Schulze-Fielitz has developed in close cooperation with Wolfgang Fiel (Vienna) an exhibition concept that offers comprehensive insights into his architectural designs of the 1960s and ’70s.
16 April - 3 July, 2011
With Yona Friedman, who lives in Paris, and the Bregenz-based Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz, two of the most prominent proponents of 1960s avant-garde urbanism are invited to the KUB Arena to present their works for the first time ever in a dialogical format. On the basis of urban planning models and extensive theoretical treatises they not only developed visionary approaches to the problems of urban development, but also generated the foundations for a new philosophy of architecture. Since first meeting in 1959, they are still linked by a close friendship, which found its architectural expression in a joint design for a Bridge City over the English Channel (1963).
An important impetus for their intellectual exchange was their membership of the Groupe d’Étude d’Architecture Mobile (GEAM), founded by Friedman in 1958, an association of architects who, in reaction to the architectural challenges posed by industrialization, urbanization, and the resulting housing shortage, investigated mobile forms of architecture. Basing their productions on principles such as mobility, alterability, and flexibility, they developed architectural mega-structures designed to extend above existing cities. The role of the architect here was replaced by a new persona, that of the planner who only provides a frame, a structure, within which future inhabitants can shape their environment as they see fit. For all the diversity of their distinct approaches, their shared interest in adaptable infrastructures, in participation, and in the development of specific communication systems led to a concept of architecture that touched on sociological no less than economic, mathematical, and philosophical issues. Particularly Friedman’s manifesto L’Architecture Mobile (1958), his urban spatial concepts like La Ville Spatiale (1960), Schulze-Fielitz’s Raumstadt (1959), and the latter’s early considerations of such themes as environmental control, sustainability, and the resources shortage were visionary and have subsequently been explored by generations of architects and urban planners.
Yona Friedman (b. 1923) has been working on the development of mobile architectural structures since the 1940s. With Panel Chains (1945) and Movable Boxes (1949) he started by creating simple architectures made from cheap, easily transportable, and custom-made prefabricated materials designed to give a minimum of shelter to those who had been made homeless by the war. Ever since, Friedman has been developing anti-hierarchical, do-it-yourself, individually extendable structures from recycled materials and modules. Convinced that the universe and human nature are neither predictable nor controllable, he has set out in his writings the possibilities of an ideal architecture characterized by the absence of planning, standardization, and logic. Friedman’s projects and ideas on self-organization have met increasing interest in the field of contemporary art in recent years. Consequently, he has become an increasingly important reference point for many artists, and at the same time has been represented in several international exhibitions. At the KUB Arena he will present, among other things, his installation Proteinic Structure—Space Chain (2010), an irregular structure in which fundamental principles of his practice are concentrated.
In contrast to Friedman, Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz (b. 1929) has always also been a practicing architect who knew how to apply the insights of his urban spatial theories in varying forms to a number of projects that were actually realized. The most prominent and largest project with around 900 housing units is the residential estate on the Ach river in Bregenz (with Jakob Albrecht and Gunter Wratzfeld, 1971–1980), which Schulze-Fielitz himself refers to as a “space city that has landed.” While his early works were largely influenced by Mies van der Rohe, he subsequently developed a stronger interest in spatial structures that go beyond “Miesian box architecture.” At the latest with the presentation of his first space city model at the Galerie Van der Loo in Essen in 1960, his work has been characterized by the search for a spatial ordering system—on the analogy of a physical model—consisting of a modulable macromaterial comprising relatively few elementary parts and which, following a definite law of construction, is arbitrarily extendable. Based on the model of the so-called Metaeder, the geometrical nucleus of his space city designs, Eckard Schulze-Fielitz has developed in close cooperation with Wolfgang Fiel (Vienna) an exhibition concept that offers comprehensive insights into his architectural designs of the 1960s and ’70s.