Architekturzentrum Wien  
 

 
 
BUS:STOP Krumbach

RUNTIME: 18.09. – 07.10.2014
PRESS TOUR: Wednesday, 17.09.2014 5:30pm
OPENING: Wednesday, 17.09.2014 7pm

An exhibition by the association kultur krumbach in cooperation with vai Vorarlberger Architektur Institut

In the course of the present year what started with an unusual idea from the association “kultur krumbach” developed into a sensation that has attracted worldwide attention. Seven internationally acclaimed architecture offices designed seven “little bus shelters” for the village of Krumbach in the Bregenzerwald region of western Austria where the new structures now engage in a dialogue with the people, landscape and tradition. With the assistance of architects from the region and local skilled craftspeople small functional buildings that resemble unusual sculptures were erected in public space, where they draw attention to the public bus transportation system.

This project started in 2012 with a vague idea derived from need to renovate a number of bus shelters in the area around the village. What then resulted is the outcome of unusual collaboration in which around 300 people took part voluntarily and, for the “fee” of a week’s holiday in the Bregenzerwald, seven internationally known architects designed projects in which they intensively examined the landscape, the architecture and the skilled handcraft of the region.
The exhibition presents models, photographs and films that offer an insight into the cultural landscape of the Bregenzerwald, the regional architecture and skilled handcraft scene and the bus shelters made in this context by the architects Alexander Brodsky (Russia), Rintala Eggertsson Architects (Norway), Architecten de Vylder Vinck Taillieu (Belgium), Ensamble Studio/Antón García-Abril and Débora Mesa (Spain), Smiljan Radic (Chile), Amateur Architecture Studio/Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu (China), and Sou Fujimoto (Japan) .

This project tells a tale of the strength of communal action. The story of an idea about creating something jointly and subsequently taking delight in what has been achieved. In addition to this delight the project BUS:STOP Krumbach illustrates how a community can deal in a responsible way with questions about the design of public space. The culture of building is revealed as a process that can actively develop further if certain parameters come together: above all the involvement and commitment of courageous citizens. Here the encouragement of high-quality contemporary architecture is of equal importance to the cultivation of the architectural legacy and the further development of a living tradition of handcraft. The perfection and mastery in the use and detailing of the different materials – above all wood, glass and metal – from which the seven little bus shelters were built, sets high standards for which this region is known.

THE ARCHITECTS OF THE BUS SHELTERS IN KRUMBACH

Sou Fujimoto
Sou Fujimoto was born in 1971 in Hokkaido / Japan in 1971 and is the celebrated hero of a young generation of Japanese architects. His highly individual houses are published worldwide and manage to be both restrained and revolutionary at one and the same time. Fujimoto’s architecture derives its strength from this contrast and this is also what makes his buildings so unique. Fujimoto thinks in terms of major antitheses and then looks for the area in-between that connects both components. The relationship between nature and architecture always occupies the foreground. In 2013 he designed the temporary pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in London and received the acclaimed Marcus Prize.

dvvt, Architecten de Vylder Vinck Taillieu
Jan De Vylder (born 1968), Inge Vinck (born 1973) and Jo Taillieu (born 1971) are among the most important protagonists of the innovative Flemish architecture scene. Apparently incidental, but in fact designed precisely and full of subtleties, their buildings show how architecture outside of the usual can look. Whether in urban planning at the large scale or in the sensitive transformation of a barn, these three architects play in a highly adept manner with the attributes and inversion of traditional architectural elements.

Ensamble Studio, Antón García-Abril / Débora Mesa
Ensamble Studio is headed by Antón García-Abril (born 1969), Débora Mesa (born 1982), and the structural designer Javier Cuesta. This office carries out intensive research into the use of structure and material in architecture, also at MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston. Their designs are based on an examination of the history of the place and the natural elements of the locations. They attach great importance to the appropriateness of the building elements in relationship to the enclosed volume. Ensamble Studio succeeds in translating its spectacular intellectual constructs into an equally radical built reality.

Smiljan Radic
Smiljan Radic, who was born in 1968 in Santiago de Chile, belongs to the first generation of outstanding Chilean architects to receive international recognition. From his early works onwards – for instance two houses built on the island of Chiloé – his creative work has combined a strong visual attractiveness with intellectual severity. His projects are ambivalent, they appear both at home and yet foreign at their respective locations, they are clearly designed yet resemble accidentally found pieces, are complete but still in a process of continuous change. In 2014 Smiljan Radic designed the pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Alexander Brodsky
Alexander Brodsky (born in Moscow in 1955) achieved an international reputation back in the 1980s as one of the most outstanding representatives of the Russian “paper architects”. In the 1990s he concentrated on his artistic work. In 2000 he founded his unconventional architecture practice and began to design restaurants, single-family houses and temporary architecture installations. His poetic approach oscillates between tradition and trash. On account of his fantastical designs Brodsky is regarded as one of the most exotic and best-known contemporary Russian architects. In 2010 he was presented with Russia’s most important artistic award, the Kandinsky Prize.

Rintala Eggertsson Architects, Sami Rintala / Dagur Eggertsson
Rintala Eggertsson Architects are cross-over architects of the new generation who move in a fluid way between architecture, art and design. In their work Sami Rintala, who was born in Finland in 1969 and Dagur Eggertsson, born in 1965 in Iceland, reflect human relationships to culture and nature, fed by their musings on archaic landscape spaces in their native countries. Since 2007 they have run a joint office at two locations in Norway – in Oslo and in Bodø, which lies north of the Arctic Circle.

Amateur Architecture Studio, Wang Shu / Lu Wenyu
With their spectacular reinterpretations of traditional architecture the Amateur Architecture Studio of Wang Shu (born in 1963) and Lu Wenyu represents a new generation of Chinese architects. Their buildings establish a harmony between old construction techniques and materials and the present day. Among the most important buildings erected by this office are the Wenheng Library of the University of Suzhou, the Xiangshan Campus of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ningbo. Since 2000 Wang Shu has been teaching architecture at the China Academy of Art, in Harvard, Pennsylvania, and in Texas. In 2010 Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu were awarded the Schelling Architecture Prize. In 2012 Wang Shu received the Pritzker Prize.

Curator of the project: Dietmar Steiner, Director Az W
Curator of the exhibition: Verena Konrad, Director vai

This exhibition is supported by the Verein Kultur Krumbach.


© Adolf Bereuter 

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BUS:STOP Krumbach


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Ines Purtauf
Tel.: +43 (1) 522 31 15 - 25
Fax: +43 (1) 522 31 17
Email: purtauf@azw.at

 
 
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