MODERN HERITAGE AND ITS DISCONTENTS: THE POSSIBLE FUTURES OF VILLA BEER
EXHIBITING ARCHITECTURE
This design studio questions the way in which canonical Modernist houses have been transformed into museums in the last decades. Famous projects like the Villa Tugendhat, the Schroder House or the Villa Savoye – where family dwelling once took place – are today self-exhibiting spaces or museums dedicated to displaying their own architecture. This approach showcases architecture as a static being, and so it fails to incorporate the question of time, memory, and reuse – issues which are at stake when it comes to spatial practice in relation to heritage.
In this studio, students will challenge this recurring preservation practice by proposing alternatives that do not see the building simply as a fossil that is stuck in time – and should only be looked at – but as a living architecture that should be used.
CASE STUDY VILLA BEER
The studio will focus on Villa Beer in Vienna. Designed by Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach and completed in 1929, it is not only one of the most important housing projects of Modernism but is also tied to the political and architectural history of Vienna. Architecturally, the Villa Beer provides an opportunity. Unlike the villas mentioned above, it lacks its interior fitting, which held much of the spatial character invested in by Frank. This void leaves room for answers to the following questions: How can we reimagine the former residential home space to exhibit not only the architecture itself, but also contextual content? How can we rethink the relationship between the interior spaces and the garden? How do we deal with architectural loss? And, most importantly, how do we question the permanence of collective memory, and consider forms of spatial re-appropriation instead?
TASK
This is a conceptual and practical design studio. Positioned between theory and practice as well as between the architectural and the curatorial, the students are expected to develop designs for today’s Villa Beer that make it at once readable as a complex exhibit of Modernism and as a novel display for contemporary artistic and social practices and uses.
METHOD
Students in this studio will be expected to produce drawings, diagrams and models but also to write texts, use photography and take performative approaches to the use and curatorial design of the villa. The studio will also include a field trip to Brno and Prague.
This studio will be held in English. Work in groups of 2 to 3.
LECTURERS
Wilfried Kuehn
Gili Merin
Marko Lulić
Alexander Garber
FURTHER INFORMATION
Kick-off: Tue, 07. October from 10:00 a.m., Raumlabor, followed by a tour of Villa Beer
Weekly crits are generally on Friday from 09:00 to 15:00.