As Found: Experiments in Preservation

Perspectives

The colloquium aims to discuss how contemporary architecture deals with the existing built environment ‘as found’ from four different angles.

Opening Lecture 'As Found' by Anne Lacton.

“Demolishing is a decision of easiness and short term. It is a waste of many things – a waste of energy, a waste of material, and a waste of history. Moreover, it has a very negative social impact. For us, it is an act of violence.” Anne Lacaton

The work of Parisian architecture practice Lacaton & Vassal illustrates the experimental handling of existing buildings like no other. The studio prefers renovation to destruction, giving a second life to existing buildings. This caring design attitude is already evident in their early work. They maintain it in all the commissions they have since completed. From cultural buildings like the Palais de Tokyo cultural centre in Paris to their large-scale approach to post-war social housing. Everywhere, they work with attention to the cost-effective use of materials and building techniques. The user's well-being and quality of life are the central focus at all times.

In 2021, Lacaton & Vassal received the prestigious international Pritzker Architecture Prize. The jury praises their 'restorative architecture'.

“…never demolish what could be redeemed and instead, make sustainable what already exists, thereby extending through addition, respecting the luxury of simplicity and proposing new possibilities.” Anne Lacaton en Jean-Philippe Vassal, The Pritzker Architecture Prize 2021.

Anne Lacaton was born in France in 1955. Graduated from the School of Architecture of Bordeaux in 1980. Diploma in Urban Planning at the university of Bordeaux in 1984. Professor at ETH Zurich since 2017. Visiting professor at the University of Madrid, Master Housing since 2007, at EPFL Lausanne, 2004, 2006, 2010-11 and 2017, at the University of Florida: Ivan Smith Studio in 2012, at theUniversity of NY-Buffalo: Clarkson Chair in 2013, at the Pavillon Neuflize OBC-Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 2013-2014, at Harvard GSD: Kenzo Tange 2011 & Design critic 2015, at Sassari University in Alghero 2014 & 2015, at TU Delft, sem 2016-17.

05.09.2023 - 20:00h
DE SINGEL
Desguinlei 25, 2018 Antwerp

Keynote Lecture “As Found 02: Towards Sustainable Design Futures” by Markus Berger.

Markus Berger is Professor of Interior Architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), a registered architect (SBA) in the Netherlands and founder and director of The Repair Atelier: an art/design workshop that investigates and activates ideas of reuse. His work, research, writing, and teaching are a critique on the ethics of modern architecture and focus on forms of change and repair in art, architecture, and design. Berger co-founded Int|AR, the Journal on Interventions and Adaptive Reuse. His latest co-edited books are: Intervention and Adaptive Reuse: A Decade of Responsible Practice, (Berger, Wong), Birkhauser, 2021; and Repair: Sustainable Design Futures, (Berger, Irvin), Routledge, 2023.

06.09.2023 - 16:30h
UHasselt, Faculty of Law
Martelarenlaan 42, 3500 Hasselt

Keynote Lecture “Re-Thinking Preservation; the Shoemaker and the Cobbler” by Thordis Arrhenius

In the urgent context of climate change preservation has won a new relevance for architecture that goes far beyond saving a canon of buildings. This lecture will reflect on cultures of change, obsolescence and repair and their effect on the architectural discipline both in the past and today.

Thordis Arrhenius, architect SAR, (MA in Architecture KTH 1994, MA History & Theory AA Graduate School 1996, Filosofie doctor (PhD) KTH, 2003). Recently appointed professor in Architecture, Theory and Method at the School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) Stockholm, Arrhenius has previously held a professor chair in Architecture History at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (2007-20014) as well as in Culture Theory at Linköping’s University LIU, Sweden (2014-2018).

Arrhenius’ research interests concern the exhibition of architecture in mass culture, the relation between architecture and the museum, and the curatorial aspects of preservation. Publications include The Fragile Monument, on Conservation and Modernity (Artifice books on Architecture, 2012) Place and Displacement, Exhibiting Architecture, (eds. Arrhenius, Lending, McGowan, Wallis) Lars Müller Publisher, Zurich, 2014, and Experimental Preservation (eds. Arrhenius, Langdalen, Otero-Pailos) Lars Müller Publisher, Zurich, 2016.

Recent research projects investigate the role of the architectural exhibition in the reception of modern architecture in Scandinavia, the historiography of conservation, and the strategy of alteration and its architectural and theoretical implications. Under the working title Restoring the Welfare State she is at present developing a cross-disciplinary project on the welfare state, its cultures, politics, materials and agents, that aims, through the study of the ‘making’ of the welfare state, to contribute to the understanding of how the material heritage from the post-war period today is valued. She is the project leader for the research network Nordic Models of Architecture and Welfare which in 2018 received funding from the Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the humanities and social sciences (NOS-HS).

07.09.2023 - 09.00h
UHasselt, Faculty of Law
Martelarenlaan 42, 3500 Hasselt

Exhibition

The colloquium is closely linked with the exhibition As Found which will take place from September 2023 until March 2024 in DE SINGEL in Antwerp. It is also connected to the research group TRACE of the Faculty of Architecture and Arts, Hasselt University.