The Landscape Observatory of Catalonia and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona are organizing the International Seminar Creative Landscapes. Art and the Reinvention of Places, which will take place online on June 16 and 17, 2021.
How does artistic creation may contribute to remake emotional and affective links with the territory? Can art reinvest obsolete dynamics? Could it encourage dialogue between different actors, stimulate self-esteem for the place, or reactivate community action in favour of the landscape? How can creative or artistic practices help to transmit values in the landscape, raise awareness, transformation and, ultimately, bring it closer to the population?
[tcl-gallery id = “1”]
We are facing global and local challenges that force us to rethink the territories where we live. A great diversity of landscapes, both urban and rural, need new ways of approaching them, demanding a change of perspective and a reworking of their stories.
In this context, different artistic practices emerge transforming the territory and reinterpreting the landscape. These are a wide range of initiatives that, linked to specific spaces, challenge our relationship with the territory and generate new places, often far away from official and hegemonic narratives.
Creative landscapes: Transformation and revitalization
The Seminar, organized by the Landscape Observatory of Catalonia and Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona, will explore the potential of creativity to generate dynamics of transformation and revitalization of landscapes. It will also explore issues of territorial planning, heritage activation and local development.
Presentations will be given in the language stated in the programme. Simultaneous translation will be provided for the speeches between 3:00 pm and 4:45 pm on the 16th.
Registration: free but compulsory by sending an email to inscripcio@catpaisatge.net.
//
For more information click here.
Text Credits: International Seminar Creative Landscapes
The Emscher Art Trail (Emscherkunstweg) is a permanent collection of art in public spaces: 18 works of art that are accessible to everyone at any time and free of charge. Along the Emscher, a river in the Ruhr area, Germany, one will experience the unique transformation of the river, which significantly accompanies the structural change of the Ruhr region. The 19th artwork on the Emscherkunstweg in the city of Duisburg is “Neustadt” by Julius von Bismarck in collaboration with Marta Dyachenko. The city of demolished houses is a memory machine and utopia at the same time. Since the beginning of May 2021, the installation at Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord is open to all.
[tcl-gallery id = “1”]
More than two years of planning and research went into the making of “Neustadt”. Von Bismarck, who lives in Berlin, asked Dyachenko, who is an architect and artist, to collaborate with him on the project. After researching the last twenty years of the history of construction, or rather of demolition, in the Ruhr region, they selected 23 no longer existing buildings that they wanted to bring back to life in the form of sculptural models. A stretch of green in the North Duisburg Landscape Park between the Alte Emscher (an arm of the Emscher River), the Grüner Pfad (Green Path) bike path, and the A42 autobahn will now be the home of the fictional city of buildings in a scale of 1:25.
Neustadt: a cross-section of local urban architecture
“Neustadt” is about city life on the Emscher River in the entire Ruhr area. The types of buildings and intended uses were not selected according to a strict system, but rather according to aesthetic and sculptural criteria with the goal of presenting a cross-section of local urban architecture. This means that a late 19th-century historicist apartment building from the city of Essen, Germany, can be found standing next to a residential complex from a model housing development in the city of Marl from 1965. Both of these are in the same neighborhood as models of residential prefab buildings testifying to the social history of the 1970s. Another building among others: the 16-story skyscraper nicknamed the “Weiße Riese” (White Giant) in Kamo-Lintfort, has an especially turbulent history and was finally torn down after standing empty for years to create space for something new.
[tcl-gallery id = “2”]
Reference to ecological issues
“Neustadt” is a “memory machine” that evokes memories beyond our personal experience. It also provokes questions about the development of the urban realm, such as: Why were these buildings demolished? Who gets to decide whether a work of architecture is worth keeping? Economic aspects clearly play an increasingly larger role. Who hasn’t heard the recurring argument that it costs less to construct a new building than to renovate an old one? What most people do not know, however, is that the construction sector is responsible for generating 38% of global carbon dioxide emissions today. Ecological issues are important to von Bismarck and Dyachenko, such as: How can we make construction more sustainable and urban planning more sensible, long-term, and/or flexible?
City of a future that never happened
Von Bismarck and Dyachenko elaborately transformed the buildings into sculptural models using concrete and steel, creating finely detailed ornamental window fixtures, wall reliefs, and countless tiny window panes made of acrylic glass. Although much attention was given to particulars, the artists’ goal was not to create exact, faithful renditions, but to make the buildings recognizable. In their eyes, the original buildings are “visions in concrete” that have been brought back to life in the “city of a future that never happened.” In time, the vegetation will spread into this fictional city, creating a shift in scale as weeds and plants begin to loom large like trees, although several buildings still stand taller than us even when shrunk. The new city of “old buildings” is a place to linger and reflect on the development of our immediate surroundings.
[tcl-gallery id = “3”]
Permanent collection of outstanding public artworks
The Emscherkunstweg is a cooperation between Urbane Künste Ruhr (Ruhr Urban Arts), the Emschergenossenschaft (Emscher River Basin Management), and the Regionalverband Ruhr (Ruhr Regional Association) under the patronage of Isabel Pfeiffer-Poensgen, Minister of Culture and Science of the State of North-Rhine Westphalia. The trail with sculptures along the path was born out of a temporary exhibition series called “Emscherkunst” (Emscher Art) and has evolved parallel to the transformation of the Emscher River by the Emschergenossenschaft. The goal of the Emscher Art Trail project is to establish a permanent collection of outstanding public artworks.
For more information click here.
/
Text Credits: Emscherkunstweg, Urbane Künste Ruhr
Rintala Eggertsson Architects have designed FLYT, a Bathing installation at Fleischer brygge (Fleischer Park) in Moss, Norway, which not only promises relaxation and wellness in an urban and industrial setting, but is also a work of art in itself.
[tcl-gallery id = “1”]
The project is the outcome of an art-in-public-space competition that the municipality of Moss organized in 2018 to revitalize a former industrial area west of the city centre as a part of their 300 year anniversary. The competition was won by Rintala Eggertsson Architects with the proposal FLYT – with several bathing installations placed on floating piers in the sound of Moss. After negotiations with landowners, the project was moved to a nearby location where two of the installations were redesigned to fit with pre-existing piers. A third installation was placed inside the adjacent park to house secondary functions, to strengthen the axis towards the city centre, and to give the park area a more human scale. The third pavilion is set to be realized before the summer of 2021.
[tcl-gallery id = “2”]
Bathing Installation: Inspiration from industrial structures in the area
The bathing installations consist of two strucures; a) the diving tower with a lookout platform and a light installation, and b) the sauna both of which will be open to the public year-round. The installations have drawn inspiration from industrial structures in the area: cranes, chimneys, silos, gantries, etc that have defined the cultural landscape around Moss harbour for more than two centuries. Therefore, the solution was therefore to expose the loadbearing components and separate them from walls, floors, and ceilings in order to make them stand out as visually comprehensive to the public.
Spectrum of colours into the top of the diving tower as a reflection
As the project was developed in connection with the 300 year anniversary of Moss municipality, it was important for the design team to mark the relationship with the history of Moss that was significant in the first steps towards independence from Sweden and subsequent development of democracy in Norway. The Moss convention between the two states was the beginning of a development that ultimately led to parliamentarianism and the multi-party political system that now dominates public policies in the country. The architects wanted to add that as a layer to their installations by projecting a spectrum of colours into the top of the diving tower as a reflection on how governments come and go, sometimes represented by left-wing politicians, other times politicians from the right-wing, and often times by coalition governments of different sides of the political spectrum.
[tcl-gallery id = “3”]
A visual and haptic experience
The installations are made out of a series of wooden modules that play with the idea of repetition similar to shipping containers, but is a system that also invites people to think of the installations as toy blocks that are being stacked, almost like an invitation for the public to play with.
The installations by the waterfront will, in many ways, function as physical barriers to the sea, but are interactive as they will also function as gateways to the sea, a threshold defining the edge of the seaside promenade. Therefore it was important to give them a distinct scale and an architectonic expression different from the surrounding blocks of flats and closer to human proportions. The design team found it natural when working with functions so related to the human body to use more organic materials with texture and physical character that would offer the visitor a haptic experience of the installations rather than merely a visual one.
[tcl-gallery id = “4”]
The outcome is a functional, yet visually compelling set of installations that make outdoor bathing in the central area of Moss much more accessible to the general public.
/
PROJECT INFO
Location: Fleischer brygge, 59.436374, 10.656793
Client: Moss municipality
Construction period: 10.04. –15.12.2020
Construction budget: NOK 4M
Art committee/competition jury: Hanne Tollerud, Trygve Nordby, Eva Talberg, Torunn Årset, Silje Hobbel, Berit Kolden and Thale Fastevold
Curator: Thale Fastevold
Project management: Moss municipality; Berit Kolden
Design: Rintala Eggertsson Architects
Engineering: Multiconsult
Lighting design: SML lighting
Text Credits: Rintala Eggertsson Architects
How do we want to live today and what artistic means can help us find productive approaches to do so? The interdisciplinary exhibition ‘What if …?’ in the ‘Neues Museum’ in Nuremberg, Germany, engages contemporary perspectives from art, architecture, and design in a dialog with references from the 1960s and 1970s. The exhibition runs until 20 September.
[tttgallery id=”884″]
What if …? takes up contemporary calls for new utopias for the 21st century and aims at initiating social discussions and visions of the future not by means of dystopian prophecies, but by promoting new modes of thinking via productive discourse. If one perceives utopia as a method of thinking, as an intellectual free space in which concepts for the future are tested while also critically reflecting the status quo, independent of what is currently realizable, it gains immediate significance for the present. As creative engines, art, architecture, and design can make a meaningful contribution to promoting such alternative models of thought and reassessing utopian qualities.
[tttgallery id=”883″ template=”content-slider”]
State and City
What if …? presents over thirty artists and designers who investigate the potential of the utopian. In five chapters, the exhibition features photographs, films and videos, drawings, architectural models and objects, extensive or interactive installations. Central thematic complexes related to the utopian, such as state and city, bring together historical and current sources of inspiration for a new understanding.
How do we deal with nature and technologies?
Furthermore, the relationship between individual and social utopias as well as alternative perspectives on how we deal with nature and technologies are discussed. The power of imagination and the chances these visualizations offer for our discourses illustrate the relevance of art and design when it comes to developing new utopias.
The exhibition runs from 30 May 2020 to 20 September 2020. For more information click here.
The creative use of space, objects and time is a hallmark of Christo, who passed away on May 31, 2020. Together with his partner Jean-Claude, he evolved the idea of wrapping objects, buildings, and landscapes, transforming them into an art form. Our author Wolfram Höfer, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, reflects on his personal encounters with Christo’s art. A personal farewell.
[tttgallery id=”869″]
For me, as a landscape architect, Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s art is important because it forced the viewer to see places and landforms differently – and so to discover new qualities. My first personal encounter with their work was the “Wrapped Reichstag” in Berlin in 1995. I had just graduated from college and was working as a landscape planner. Their “Project for Berlin” became my summer event. Christo and Jeanne-Claude transformed the not very architecturally exciting Reichstag building (Wilhelm II-style: over-decorated, clumsy, fat, loaded with a lot of bad German history) into an aesthetically exciting object and created a completely new space. It was fascinating to see how thousands of people were enjoying it every day: examining, discussing, arguing. To me, Christo’s art often shows a witty (and wise) sense of humor that seemed to shine through from under the veil of cloth.
“The perception of the building in Berlin’s urban space has been sustainably changed by Christo”
Today, the “Wrapped Reichstag” is history and the building again serves its original purpose as Germany’s parliament. But since then, the perception of the building in Berlin’s urban space has been sustainably changed by Christo. His veiling was a revelation for many, taking away part of the building’s historic encumbrance and creating unforgettable images.
In 1999 and in 2013 I had the opportunity to see Christo’s installations at the Gasometer in Oberhausen. During both projects, his playful dealing with space and scale were remarkable and memorable. The 1999 “Wall of Oil Barrels” and the 2013 “Big Air Package” delivered a sublime perception of three-dimensional space inside this former industrial building. Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s installation made it possible to experience what “absolutely great” really feels like. As a footnote – these two projects were their only land-art installations inside an exhibition venue. On all other occasions the artist couple only used exhibition spaces to present objects from the preparation of their projects – these objects pointed at the final ‘product’, but did not physically show it.
“I was blown away by the beauty and spatial experience.”
In 2005, when I walked the “Gates” project in New York City’s Central Park, I just loved their work (as before in Berlin and Oberhausen). I was flirting with the idea of moving to the U.S. and was blown away by the beauty and spatial experience moving through their perfectly placed orange gates and the shiny orange fabric. The paths they chose for the “Gates” modeled a landscape out of Central Park in wintery light that was beautifully sublime. It created a joyful walking experience and cast Central Park in a completely different light. Today, another layer of appreciation adds to my relationship to Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s oeuvre. After 15 years of working in the tristate area surrounding New York City (NYC), I now see a new dimension of their art: making projects become reality. Bureaucracy is a global phenomenon, but in this respect as in many others, NYC is exceptional: political minefields and trench warfare render decision making a debilitatingly slow snail-paced race. Only a stellar mix of stamina, patience, wit, and stubbornness could bring the city administration and Central Park Conservancy (who were extremely critical of any installation because they feared for damage to the park due to the bracings for the gates) to one table that lead to the installation – eventually.
[tttgallery id=”870″]
In the aftermath, “The Gates” was an amazing success for Central Park. No damage was done to anything in the park, amazing public relations were generated worldwide, plus a generous donation to the Park Administration by Christo and Jeanne-Claude made the decision to allow this exception a wise move. It took Christo and Jeanne-Claude 25 years to implement “The Gates” – but this kind of stamina was an essential part of their artistic work. Without their endurance all their ideas would have remained just nice dreams.
“He sees himself as an educated Marxist who knows how to use the capitalist system for his art.”
Finally: Who has paid for all this? Christo and Jeanne-Claude! Through the sale of posters and other merchandise related to their studies for the different projects, they were able to finance their projects without any public or private support from third parties. From Jeanne-Claude’s perspective, their projects became particularly powerful because they were available to everyone, but only temporary and could not be purchased or owned. The New York Times wrote, quoting Christo, that he sees himself as an educated Marxist who knows how to use the capitalist system for his art.
“Certain components of landscape architecture can take inspiration from Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s work”
Landscape architecture is no ‘free art’, but certain components of landscape architecture can take inspiration from Christo’s and Jeanne-Claude’s work. Their design always referred to a spatial context; interventions were never only self-reflecting – they always turned into a new meaning for each space that went beyond the transient physical art itself.
Today, when I remember the artworks of Christo and Jeanne-Claude that I personally had the opportunity to witness and experience, it seems to me that they both look at the viewer through their art – with a twinkle in their eyes – saying: Enjoy life and allow yourself to see things differently! Discover the new in the seemingly well-known!
Bigger, more beautiful, more expensive: The Museum of Modern Art in New York was reopened after four months of renovation work and featuring the new “David Geffen Wing” worth 450 million.
[tttgallery id=”757″]
The wing is named after the Californian music billionaire, who donated 100 million dollars for the reconstruction (David Rockefeller, whose mother Abby Aldrich founded the museum 90 years ago, contributed 200 million dollars). Constructed on the western side of the building on West 53rd Street, the wing extends to the basements of a high-rise apartment building by Jean Nouvel that was built at the same time. The site of the American Folk Art Museum had to give way to it – very much to the annoyance of the preservationists. This is no surprise for a museum connected to the Who’s Who of New York’s real-estate industry (the American Folk Art Museum itself is nowadays located at Columbus Circle).
[tttgallery id=”758″]
The reconstruction increases the exhibition surface of one of the world’s biggest art museums by one third, about 5,000 square kilometres. The MoMA now comprises more than 60 galleries on six floors, a continuous sequence of rooms. The architects are Diller Scofidio + Renfro, known for the “Highline” and the Lincoln Center renovation, along with global design and architecture firm Gensler.
Almost like an Apple store?
Not everyone is completely thrilled. Michael Kimmelman, the New York Times architecture critic, described the construction as intelligent and precise, almost like an Apple store, yet “slightly soulless”. The MoMA would have turned the block into a canyon of steel and glass, bringing to mind the “headquarters of Darth Vader’s hedge fund”. Only the façade is dark, though. On the inside, the new construction is flooded with light; the galleries, a series of bright rooms grouped around the lobby, provide views of the sculpture garden. The lobby has been expanded as well; visitors no longer enter the museum through a dark corridor, but through a bright hall. Moreover, a display window has been fitted, allowing passers-by to catch a glimpse of the exhibits. There’s also a terrace restaurant on the sixth floor.
A continuous rotation
The extension was vital, since the museum has been overcrowded with three million visitors a year. Moreover, it enables a new way of presenting the art exhibits. From now on, the galleries are going to be mixed up every six months and supplemented by existing properties as well as new acquisitions; a continuous rotation. The MoMA incorporates an enormous collection of 140,000 art objects, most of which have been tucked away in the archive so far. The rotation will involve a great deal of work by the curators, in addition to good orientation skills by the visitors.
[tttgallery id=”759″ template=”content-slider”]
Strengthen the presence of artists
As in the past, architecture continues to be one of MoMA’s key areas. It is present through all forms of media and expression, from paintings to drawings, sculptures, installations, infinite video loops, film excerpts and sound elements. The exhibits include pieces from the Frank Lloyd Wright collection, for instance, such as a model of the Guggenheim Museum, situated at Central Park. Another gallery showcases Marcel Duchamp. One room is dedicated to the 1930s modernism, with posters from Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis”, film excerpts from “Berlin – Symphony of a Metropolis”, the outline of Mies van der Rohe’s envisaged tower at the Berlin Friedrichstraße, as well as drawings by El Lissitzky and city models by Le Corbusier. Moreover, it includes an exemplar of the Frankfurt kitchen by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. The museum aims to strengthen the presence of artists. While the larger part of the new MoMA consists of existing properties, it also features some new acquisitions, such as a room-high sculpture by artist Sheila Hicks.
The museum now also merges art across time periods and continents. Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” was placed in contrast to the writhing clay pots by George Ohr from Mississippi, the “Mad Potter of Biloxi”. And Pablo Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” is now positioned next to a painting of the American artist Faith Ringgold, depicting the race riots in New York’s Harlem district in the 1960s.
Not the last one
Originally, Elizabeth Diller was supposed to build the new MoMA, but the museum did not favour her large-size concept. The extension by Diller Scofidio + Renfro hasn’t been the first one since its foundation in 1939, when the building was only six storeys tall and clad in marble. Through several phases, the museum has taken up almost the entire block in Manhattan, including a residential tower for affluent New Yorkers. Philip Johnson built here in the sixties, then Cesar Pelli. The last rebuilding was carried out in 2004 by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi. Presumably, this reconstruction won’t be the last one either.
