Category: Departments

On Thursday, November 12th at 6PM, internationally renowned art theorist and professor of Oslo Art Academy Jan Verwoert will hold a public lecture Whipped Cream for the Walking Dead at the hall of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, 6 Kohtu St.

The material world each day gives us more stuff to buy and fear, while at night our faces at night are bathed in the glow of LED-screens as we look for true life on the net. Did the war stop in the ’50s? Or did the pills just get better in taking the edge off? What to do when everywhere we go, online or IRL, we still can’t help but bring our body?

One way to deal with the situation, it would seem, is to turn life into a shimmer as sublimely dull as that on your screen. Call it the bliss of Zombies who no longer feel that they don’t feel, because they have lost their metabolism and can eat what they want and never put on a gram of weight. Who could fail to be convinced by the deep drowsiness in Lana del Rey’s voice when she sings that all she wanted to do was get high by the beach?

Yet what if the soul keeps kicking and yearning for some food and hurls us back in among a world of things, people, promises and online horoscopes? What if we confronted the question Bifo Berardi raised, asking: “Where shall we take our round bodies?”

Jan Verwoert is a writer, a contributing editor of frieze magazine, a professor for theory at the Oslo Academy of the Arts and teaches at the Piet Zwart Institute Rotterdam. He is the author of Bas Jan Ader: In Search of the Miraculous (MIT Press/Afterall Books 2006), Tell Me What You Want What You Really Really Want (Sternberg Press/Piet Zwart Institute 2010), and, with Michael Stevenson, Animal Spirits — Fables in the Parlance of Our Time (JRP, Zurich 2013) and Cookie! (Sternberg Press/Piet Zwart Inst. 2014).

Estonian Academy of Arts, Institute of Art History in co-operation with the Centre for Contemporary Art Estonia are organizing a public lecture series concentrated on the questions of contemporary curatorship, criticism and theory. All lectures will be preceded by reading groups analyzing the previuos texts of the visiting lecturer at the office of Centre for Contemporary Art Estonia, Vabaduse väljak 6. The reading groups are free and open for all. The writing of Jan Verwoert will be discussed this Friday, November 6th at 2PM, please e-mail rebeka@cca.ee for registration.

Estonian Academy of Arts, Institute of Art History is delighted to present a public lecture of Prof Kenneth Frampton (Columbia University, New York) on Wednesday, October 14th 6PM at the Museum of Estonian Architecture.

Kenneth Frampton is an architect and architectural historian whose Modern Architecture. A Critical History from 1980, currently available in its fourth, significantly updated edition, has become one of the most canonical accounts of 20th century architecture. With remarkably broad scope, Kenneth Frampton introduced to the Western-centered discourse of modern architecture developments by the Russian avant-garde, Alvar Aalto and Scandinavian modernism, experimentations in colonial contexts as well as contemporary developments on the global scale. Besides architecture history, Prof Frampton has been a prolific commentator on architecture of our own age. Having moved from Great Britain to the United States in 1965, Kenneth Frampton started teaching firstly in Princeton University and from 1972 onwards in Columbia, forming the most innovative circle of architectural theorists of the time together with Peter Eisenman, Manfredo Tafuri, Rem Koolhaas, Diana Agrest ja Anthony Vidler. The magazine Oppositions, established at Columbia in 1973, became the leading platform for innovative architectural thought, aiming at introducing critical theory to the discussions on architectural practice and culture in the wider sense. Frampton’s own positions have been informed by Hannah Arendt’s social critique as well as Martin Heidegger’s conceptions of locality, thus he has always emphasized the social responsibility of architectural production as well as the specificities of context, aiming to resist the tendency to view buildings as representations or commodity. The 1983 essay Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six points for an architecture of resistance, pleading for a critical locality as a countermeasure against global homogenization and scenographic architecture, retains its relevance even today. These principles continue to inform Prof Frampton’s recent publications including monographic volumes on Alvaro Siza (2000), Le Corbusier (2001), Tadao Ando (2003), and five North American architects (2012).

The open lectures of the Institute of Art History are supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.
Professor Kenneth Frampton’s public lecture is organized in co-operation with Aalto University Helsinki.

Photo: Jeff Barnett-Winsby, 2007

Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture “Open Lecture Series”

Kanuti Gildi Saal (Pikk 20, Tallinn)

Marjan Colletti (1972) is an Italian architect, scientist and theorist. He graduated from Innsbruck University, where he is the head of the Institute of Experimental Architecture. He acquired a PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture at University College London, where he is a doctor level professor, director of computing and holds his own studio. He has been teaching in multiple universities in Asia, Europe and America and his writings on design research theories have been extensively published. In addition he has edited the 80th anniversary issue of Architectural Design named Exuberance, that dealt with digital virtuosity in contemporary architecture. He has curated tens of exhibitions and participated at more, multiple Venice Architecture Biennales among others. He is a founder and partner of the London based architecture office marcosandmarjan.

marjan-colletti.blogspot.com

At the Open Lecture Series well-known architects, theoreticians, critics and urbanists from all around the globe give talks to offer fresh perspectives on architecture, design, urban development and critical thought.

The lectures are open to all students and professionals in the fields of architecture, urbanism and other spatial studies, as well as to the broader circle of those interested in the future of our living environment. The lectures are held in English and they are free of charge.

The lecture series is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Opening April 10, 4 pm at Löwenschede tower, Kooli 7, Tallinn

Croquis.
EAA Faculty of Design. Drawing Studio. Estonia pst 7 – 245.

26.03 Siv Helene Stangeland_Helen&Hard (Stavanger)
Helen & Hard was founded in 1996 in Stavanger on the west coast of Norway by Norwegian architect Siv Helene Stangeland and Austrian architect Reinhard Kropf. Today, the company has a youthful staff of 20, drawn from 8 different countries, with offices in both Stavanger and Oslo. They design in different scales and scopes, on a wide spectrum of projects ranging from single family houses to large public buildings, from offices and multi-family housing projects to master planning. They aim to creatively engage with sustainability, not only in the design of spaces, but also in the conception and organization of the design process, including construction and fabrication. Their goal is move away from a solely technical and anthropocentric view, allowing the project to unfold in relation to its physical, social, cultural and economic context. Helen&Hard has won a number of awards and prizes, as well as exhibited and published their work internationally.
http://www.hha.no

Estonian Academy of Arts Faculty of Architecture Public Guest Speaker Series

Quite a few well-known architects, theoreticians, critics and urbanists have given talks at this lecture series, to offer fresh perspectives on architecture, design, urban development and critical thought from around the globe. The lectures are open to all students and professionals in the fields of architecture, urbanism and other spatial studies, as well as to the broader circle of those interested in the future of our living environment. The lectures are in English and they are free of charge.

The previous talks can be found at https://www.artun.ee/avatudloengud
The lecture series is supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Croquis. Models are Be RI & snakes.