Category: Faculty of Architecture

Open architecture lecture “Dumb Emancipatory Housing. Dumb Emancipatory City Planning”: Sebastian Bietenhader and Matthias Moroder / Büro Bietenhader Moroder

On January 12 at 6 pm in room A-400

The lecture is held in English, is free and open to all interested parties.

The open lecture will finish the “Dumb emancipatory housing Workshop” held by EASA (European Architecture Student Assembly) on January 8 – 12. The workshop at EKA is supported by Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Sebastian Bietenhader and Matthias Moroder have been working together as Büro Bietenhader Moroder since 2015. Büro Bietenhader Moroder deals with copyness as a positive formal property of architecture, which makes it possible to work formally against the neoliberal architecture of differentiation, flexibilization and individualization. By simultaneously maximizing the formal relations of architectural settings to one another, which is conceptually defined as copyness, Büro Bietenhader Moroder opens up a re-reading of the formal characteristics of social housing of French and Russian revolutionary architecture and that of Red Vienna.

Cities are starting again to build housing as builder-owners to counter the suffocation of urban life through real-estate speculation. This new public housing needs its own architecture. However, the historical formal and aesthetic distinctions between public and free market housing have been lost, all housing mimics or is luxury housing.

In the search for an intrinsically public housing architecture Büro Bietenhader Moroder has discovered a totally overlooked formal quality of architecture: Maximalist intentional sameness, termed dumb copyness. Dumb copyness is fundamentally different than mere serial repetition. Instead, it relies on formal qualities that enhance the maximum sameness of rooms, flats, entire housing blocks or urban settings far beyond mere industrial or functionalist seriality.

Hereby methodological rigor is central. Through a rejection of creative ad-hoc-subversion, deviation on every level, – the ubiquitous demand for ‘smartness’ –, a methodical planning can be re-established that achieves a directness that is greatly and blatantly dumb.

Guided by this focus Büro Bietenhader Moroder seeks to rediscover and reclaim the historical forms and aesthetics of pre-WWII public housing, such as Russian revolutionary architecture and that built by Red Vienna from 1919 to 1934. In this period, we find specific formal articulations of a non-functionalist public housing architecture that is almost forgotten and that gives shape to a collective life that is affordable and emancipatory. Through this critical historical re-reading we are developing a design method for emancipatory housing that is so directly public, so clear and basic that it is dumb.

Sebastian Bietenhader and Matthias Moroder have been working together as Büro Bietenhader Moroder since 2015. Büro Bietenhader Moroder deals with copyness as a positive formal property of architecture, which makes it possible to work formally against the neoliberal architecture of differentiation, flexibilization and individualization. By simultaneously maximizing the formal relations of architectural settings to one another, which is conceptually defined as copyness, Büro Bietenhader Moroder opens up a re-reading of the formal characteristics of social housing of French and Russian revolutionary architecture and that of Red Vienna.

Sebastian Bietenhader studied architecture at the ETH Zurich (BSc.) and at the Harvard GSD, as well as history and philosophy of knowledge, also at the ETH Zurich (MSc.), where he did a thesis on the development of the computer modelling space, which will be essential for BIM. He headed the student discussion group “Ambitus”. He is a regular guest critic at the ETH and has been teaching architecture at various (non)- institutions.

Matthias Moroder studied architecture (AA Dipl.) at the Architectural Association in London, art history (BA) and philosophy (BA) at the University of Vienna and history and theory of architecture (MAS) at the ETH Zurich. Besides the work as Büro Bietenhader Moroder, since 2018 he is co-leading MAGAZIN, an independent exhibition space for architecture in Vienna. He is currently a PhD candidate at the department of art history of the University of Vienna and has been teaching architecture and architectural history and theory at various (non)- institutions. Matthias is also co-founder of the Vienna Architecture Summer School.

EKA Urban Studies MSc programme invites prospective master’s students to join the programme’s online info session on Thursday, February 1, 2024 at 16:00 EET (local Estonian time).

This online info session will be a good opportunity to hear more about the curriculum, and to meet and ask questions directly from people behind Urban Studies programme. The info session will be hosted online over Zoom.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below. A link to attend will be e-mailed shortly before the event begins.

REGISTER HERE

More information about Urban Studies MSc programme:

• https://www.artun.ee/urban-studies
• https://www.facebook.com/urbantallinn

Next admissions period starts on the 1st of February 2024 and application deadline is 4th of March 2024.

https://artun.ee/admissions

From its abandoned beaches to the smelly yet indispensable water treatment plant, the hill made from trash, the willfully resistant garage town and its shiny new future plans – everything in Paljassaare seems to be exactly that: an ever-changing sequence of elements, a kaleidoscope.

After researching its abundance of topics, places and processes for one semester, first year Urban Studies students from Estonian Academy of Arts will take their turn and reflect on what they have spotted in that kaleidoscope, in a sequence of creative projects presented on site, in Paljassaare.

The detailed route and more information on each stop can be found on Urban Studies facebook page and Instagram soon!

Within the framework of the Open Lectures Series of the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA, Birgitte Svarre will take the stage in the hall of EKA on 30th November at 6:15 pm with lecture “Public space / public life – an interaction – how to study and make room for it.” She talks about her work studying public life and creating space for it.

The lecture is preceded by public presentation of the book “How to Study Public Life” at 5:30 pm in EKA lobby.

Birgitte Svarre is the co-author of the book “How to Study Public Life”. She has a MA on Modern Culture, a PhD in Architecture and is CEO at BARK, Copenhagen, a consultancy focused on strategic development of places with a focus on both people and places. BARK is owned by the Building Heritage Foundation. Until 2022, Birgitte Svarre has been with Gehl Architects for more than 14 years consulting cities mainly in Northern Europe on human centered planning, public space and public life, including as head of Gehl’s Cities team. She is currently part of the advisory board for lively city centers for the Danish Foundation Realdania.

Architect Jan Gehl is an Adjunct Professor at the Aarhus School of Architecture, Professor (ret.) of Urban Design, The Royal Danish Academy and Founding Partner, Gehl Architects. In 1971 Jan Gehl published the seminal book Life Between Buildings launching a whole new thinking about the design and development of cities. Gehl’s first book and subsequent publications sparked a showdown with the car-centric cities and began mapping and describing people-friendly interventions in the infrastructure of cities. His books include Life Between Buildings, Public Spaces – Public Life, New City Spaces, New City Life, Cities for People.

The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines, not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties. Be there!

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn every academic year about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch previous lectures from www.avatudloengud.ee

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

On December 4, EKA Urban Studies students will present the zine “The Cheapest Option”.

Urban Studies students Elena Pusčiūtė, Ishrat Shaheen, Jonas Vyšniauskas, Maria Laura Benduzu Ulluo, Kalina Trajanovska and Kush Badhwar in collaboration with EKA GD students Joao Nogueira and Karthik Palepu release The Cheapest Option, a zine emerging from the semester-long studio Production of Urban Space, guided by Helen Runting and Leonard Ma.

The zine explores how ideas of the non-plan, neoliberalism, markets, cybernetics, and neo-liberal subjects shape our experience of space, explored through forms including city postcards, generic characters, local newspapers, and memes. The event takes place in 501, 5th floor. A limited number of copies of the zines will be available for distribution.

The zine launch will be followed by a presentation from Professor Helena Mattsson on her recent book “Architecture and Retrenchment: Neoliberalization of the Swedish Model across Aesthetics and Space, 1968–1994,” which investigates the relation between architecture and the neoliberalization of the Swedish welfare state.“

Schedule:

In autumn 2023, the open architectural lectures will take place under the title Mobile Masters. The theme brings architects and theorists to Tallinn, who analyse architecture’s flexibility and the mobile practices of architects, spatial designers and artists.

Gregor Taul, the curator of the autumn lectures, introduces the program with the following words: “Architecture stands at a significant crossroads. Ten-year-old buildings are demolished and taken to the landfill. The lifespan of an interior design project is five years at best, if that. These bleak facts do not inspire confidence in a discipline that requires so many resources in light of such a short time perspective. What does ‘better not do anything’ mean for spatial design? What might ‘mobile architecture’ refer to or who is a ‘mobile designer’? How can moving people or things be a positive spatial practice?”

On December 7, Brussels-based Laurens Bekemans and co-founder of Brussels-based BC architects & studies, will be on the EKA main hall stage in Tallinn with the lecture The Act of Building.

BC is BC architects, studies and materials. BC stands for Brussels Cooperation and points to how BC grew – embedded within place and people. Started in 2012 as a hybrid office, BC is manoeuvring the boundaries of architecture in a doers manner. With three different legal entities, the team engages in a variety of experimental projects through which it designs bioregional and circular architecture, researches educational and construction processes and produces new building materials using local waste streams such as excavated earth

Laurens introduces his lecture in the following words:

From the first fieldtrips for the design of a library in Burundi to involving over 150 workshop participants in the construction of a public building in Belgium, these stories tell how BC engages in acts of building. The act of building is act and discourse.It is the complex effort of a temporary association to create an infrastructure of its own. In order to have a positive impact on our society, BC believes that architects need to intervene beyond the narrow definition of the professional who designs and controls the execution of buildings. 

Hence, BC ventures into material production, contracting, storytelling, knowledge transfer, community organization, which all influence BC’s design approach. The act of building has an impact and is at the same time a manifestation of values and ideas, which grew out of a broad network around a specific project. Building has a transformative power, driven by action, narrative and result. The lecture will guide you through key moments and key projects, which helped transform BC into the hybrid practice it is today. 

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The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines, not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties. Be there!

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn every academic year about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch lectures from previous years on YouTube or www.avatudloengud.ee

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Curator: Gregor Taul

On November 16 at 6 p.m Philipp Teufel from Düsseldorf will explore the questions of exhibiting design with the lecture “Exhibition Design. Exhibiting Design. Exhibiting Happiness”

The lecture gives a visual insight into the Master’s programme Exhibition design – EDI and a first glimpse of the latest project together with the Estonian Academy of Arts – a concept for the traveling exhibition ”Japanese Happiness”.

EDI, the Exhibition Design Institute of the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, is a joint institute of the departments of architecture and design that bundles research foci and academic work on the topics of exhibition design, scenic design and museum design. The Exhibition Design programme deals with the broad panorama of design in relation to communication in space in the context of exhibitions.

One focus of the institute is on the history of exhibitions and their design, especially in a socio-cultural context. The second focus is on the exhibiting of design. Questions in exhibiting design are: How does one deal with the decontextualisation of the exhibited? What conflicts arise when exhibiting design, when concepts meet concepts and design meets design? How can design objects communicate with the exhibition visitor? Are design exhibitions only elitist events by designers for designers? What are the objectives, ideas, concepts of design exhibitions? How to make sensual and haptic qualities of design objects accessible?

Professor Philipp Teufel studied visual communication and scenography at the HfG Gmünd University of Applied Sciences in Schwäbisch Gmünd. From 1985 to 1995, he was a partner at the conceptdesign agency in Frankfurt am Main. Until 2007, Teufel was a partner at the nowakteufelknyrim design studio, and from 2008 to 2017, he was managing director of the malsyteufel studio. As artistic consultant for scenography, he supported the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace from 2010 to 2015. Philipp Teufel has been teaching and researching in the field of 3D communication at Hochschule Düsseldorf – University of Applied Sciences for more than 25 years and is currently a member of the Federal

Ministry of Finance’s Art Advisory Board. He has also been a jury member of Red Dot since 2015 and currently curates and designs exhibitions on the Anthropocene and on green urban living (“Grüntopia” and “Transition Now”).

Everyone from the fields of architecture, design, art, media and art research interested in the questions of exhibition design and exhibiting design are welcome to join! The lecture will be in English and is free of charge.

Further information:

Gregor Taul
gregor.taul@artun.ee
Lecturer
Department of Interior Architecture
Faculty of Architecture
Estonian Academy of Arts

BOOK LAUNCH: Urbanizing Suburbia: Hyper-Gentrification, the Financialization of Housing and the Remaking of the Outer European City

Location: EKA Lobby, Canteen

Time: 21.11.2023 @ 18:00

Urbanizing Suburbia considers three current and related processes underway in global cities: the hyper-gentrification of inner cities, the financialization of housing, and the structural changes occurring in the outer city. Rocketing housing prices have displaced residents from inner cities and created a rent gap in outer cities. Increasingly, municipalities, developers, and displaced residents search for opportunities in the suburban belts. Changes in demographics, densities, live/work ratios, and tenures are remaking outer cities, rendering them less and less suburban. The book examines these changes by looking at four key European cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, London, and Stockholm. It is a first attempt at understanding the three processes discussed here within one comprehensive explanatory framework.

Editors are EKA adjunct staff teaching at the faculty of Architecture Tahl Kaminer, Leonard Ma and Helen Runting.

EKA Prof of Urban Studies Maroš Krivy has contributed in the book with one chapter.

Urbanizing Suburbia is published by JOVIS (De Gruyter) and the publication is supported by EKA. EKA urban studies students have been part of collecting materials for the book.

The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Kaja Pae. 

It is possible to buy the book at the presentation.

I LIVE IN TALLINN
Kunstiryhmitus
02.11 – 09.11.2023
Opening: 02.11 at 6 pm

“I Live in Tallinn” is an exhibition that wraps up the collective Kunstiryhmitus’ 48 performances in Tallinn’s urban space. At the opening performance, rooms that were spilled throughout the city will be brought back together to a garage box at the gallery space Garage49 (Kalaranna 42/6). 

The sentence “I live in Tallinn.” should not refer to just the space that is enclosed between four walls. This can only be achieved if the space between buildings in a city does not only act as a transit corridor that takes you from point a to point b. The polarization between public and private space is artificial. When we stop seeing the two as totally separate, public space can be an extension of our home- it becomes common space. By bringing situations that usually take place at home to the streets of Tallinn, we turned it into a part of our homes. 

Kunstiryhmitus is a collective of EKA students from different study fields. The collective focuses on studying the space around them through performance. 

Instagram: @kunstiryhmitus

In autumn 2023, the open architectural lectures will take place under the title Mobile Masters. The theme brings architects and theorists to Tallinn, who analyse architecture’s flexibility and the mobile practices of architects, spatial designers and artists.

On October 26, at 6 pm Berlin-based architect, designer and carpenter Alexander Römer will be on the EKA main hall stage in Tallinn with the lecture Convivial Ground.

Alexander Römer initiated the international design-build network ConstructLab in 2012 as a member of the former EXYZT collective (2005–2013). ConstructLab is a laboratory for action research, constructive experimentation and interdisciplinary creation.

ConstructLab takes a dynamic approach to uniting concepts, realisation and activation of project situations. Breaking with traditional divisions of labour, the organisation engages a team of multitalented artists and designers – as well as sociologists, urban planners, graphic designers, film makers, photographers, curators, educators, and web developers – who carry the creative process from the drafting table into the field, enabling concept and design to respond to the possibilities and constraints posed by an environment, it’s people and utilisation.

Alexander introduces his lecture in the following words:

Construction is fundamentally a collaborative activity. In this talk, the collaborative aspects of construction processes are examined from different perspectives. In the design and planning process a lot of different expertise comes together, in the construction itself different trades are involved and during the construction there are situations where in sometimes very short moments, e.g. when straightening a roof truss, a lot of hands are needed. A planning and construction process is complex and can only succeed in teamwork. In addition, a broad community is created through participation processes in the building process, and through this participation, a community that cares about the building itself.

I would like to convey the community aspect of design-build processes by looking at our ConstructLab projects. In doing so, I draw on the content structure of the latest ConstructLab book Convivial Ground. Stories from a Spatial Practice (Jovis 2023, Editors: Joanne Pouzenc, Peter Zuiderwijk and Alexander Römer).

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The open lectures are intended for students and professionals of all disciplines, not just the field of architecture. All lectures take place in the large auditorium of EKA, are in English, free of charge and open to all interested parties. Be there!

Within the framework of a series of open lectures, the Department of Architecture and Urban Design of EKA brings to the audience in Tallinn every academic year about a dozen unique practitioners and valued theoreticians of the field. You can watch previous lectures  www.avatudloengud.ee

The lecture series is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.

Curator: Gregor Taul