A new Centre for Architecture & Design in Stockholm
Small building = Less permanent exhibitions =
Less maintenance costs = More money to temporary exhibitions
In 2002, due to mold infestation, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Stockholm had to close down its recently completed building. This left the institution homeless and as a result one of the most successful and appreciated exhibition campaigns in Sweden was initiated; called “Moderna Museet c/o”. For more than a year the institution would “move in” with other institutions. Lending out its artworks or curating exhibitions in spaces belonging to others, all over Sweden.
An old postal terminal in the heart of Stockholm became the hub of these activities. Here, a smaller building and exhibition meant lower maintenance costs. Therefore they could use their resources to create an intense exhibition program called “Udda veckor”, with new exhibitions
starting every two weeks. Moderna museet was described by the people working there as “intense, lively and a lot of things going on” during this period.
This example will be used as a starting point for the new Centre for Architecture & Design.
The idea is to create a small permanent building accompanied by a large public exhibition/workshop space with low maintenance costs. Thus creating the best possible platform for a centre that often wants to change their content and keep up to date with contemporary issues in architecture and design.
In order to achieve this, the space for temporary exhibitions will be separated from the archives. The archives will remain at Skeppsholmen along with a new design archive (that could be housed in the old space for temporary exhibitions in the architecture museum).
The space for temporary exhibitions, however, will be moved next to the School of Architecture in a different part of the city. This will create a program mix that could nurture both the Centre and the School and expose the school to a wider audience. There would also be a natural presence of students and staff related to the faculty benefiting the Center.
The experience:
The physical environment of the modern swedish city is controlled by restrictions that we didn’t have a hundred years ago. A vast number of regulations create a framework for the city, which in the end makes it look and function in a homogenous way. This project has the ambition to break some of the “rules” by ignoring some otherwise very dominating building regulations. Thus affecting the visitors and passers by with it’s unusual relation to it’s surroundings rather than with it’s visual qualities as an architectural object.
Could a greater awareness of the impact of design solutions on everyday life be achieved
by deliberately using inconvenient and “bad” solutions for the project?
A common way to get people to react to architecture, is to design a building that impresses with it’s visual qualities. What if the building could be as dramatic in it’s relation to the function of the surroundings? The ambition has been to make a programatic and emotional impact on the passers by, whether they want it or not. The project forces itself on the surroundings, making it hard not to react to, even if you’re not a visitor: A pavement that narrows down to nothing, forcing the passers by to walk around the the building, a narrow alley on the backside, an outside exhibition that appropriates the public and private space in front of the centre.
Introducing inconvenience and estrangement in the urban environment, in front of the building, could be a tool for creating awareness of the built environment around us. Especially in an urban landscape that otherwise is dominated by strict regulations on how the city should be developed, functionally and aesthetically.
Permanent & temporary structures:
The interior consists of a permanent structure which houses the most basic functions, such as storage, WC and services. In the central room other functions such as exhibition, workshop and offices can grow or contract. The space can be re-organized with a temporary structure, scaffolding, which can be mounted to allow extra space when required.
“The urban stage”, a public space administrated by the centre, is a tree dimensional steel framework. An extension of the permanent building where temporary structures, installations, artworks, objects, equipment could be attached.
Plan showing entrance level
Plan showing upper level
Project by Ola Keijer, fall 2008.
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Posted: March 30th, 2009
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Arkitektur,
Inconvenience
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The CeBit fair in Hannover, is Europe’s largest electronics fair and a strange and chaotic place. At a total of 496 000 square meters of indoor space (roughly the size of 70 full sized soccer fields) it is vast and the 4300 exhibitors form a baffling mass of structures, signs, sounds, displays, suits, ties, businessmen during the week, geeks during the weekend (most people at this place are men) and all kinds of different gizmos and gadgets.
It is a sea of flotsam and jetsam constructed of aluminum frames, printed banners and lcd-screens. A place where everything blends together and nothing really sticks out.
So when asked to design a new exhibition space for Telenor at this years CeBit, we decided to do a solid. A simple black volume, as large as possible, as tall as possible.
It would contrast it’s surroundings by being introvert and mysterious. Glowing blue cracks would slice the volume and visitors would be lured inside simply through the promise of discovery.
Once inside the main interior space of the solid, animations back-projected onto the surfaces inform, friendly exhibition-hosts greets and giant block of LED-lit ice provides spectacle. The volumes separating the interior space of the solid from the outside, contains the auxiliary functions like meeting, lounge and storage rooms.
Designed by Markus Wagner and Rutger Sjögrim, produced by FIELDWORK, animated by COMMERCIAL ART and built by Advers Events.
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Posted: March 15th, 2009
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Arkitektur,
Raum und Struktur
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New magazine “Cities the magazine” kicked of the production of their first issue with a workshop held this monday at gallery Detroit (Roslagsgatan 21, Stockholm).
The magazine will focus on different urban conditions and peculiarities around the world and the staff are constantly looking for new contributors. From the website:
“We don’t want to hand you a tourist guide.
We don’t want to show you the last renderings of the best architects.
We don’t want to provide the latest trends and design concepts.
We don’t want to update you on the current fashion weeks and art openings.
We want to speak about cities.”
So, if you are interested in breaking up the printed intellectual monoculture of Sweden, write a great piece about cities and send it to them or simply visit their website at www.citiesthemagazine.com and get the first issue when it gets released.
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Posted: March 12th, 2009
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framtiden,
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Writings
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(To the right, Joel Jouannet is counting votes. Next to him, the winning proposal)
When the snow falls heavily on the streets of Stockholm, turning instantly into grey sticky sleet, it is nice to be able to write about some good things that are happening in the city.
Last wednesday the first round of International Architectural Battle was fought at the School of Architecture and some of us from Svensk Standard were lucky enough to be competing. Organized by Joel Jouannet, as a part of his masters thesis, the concept of the battle is simple yet exciting.
There are four teams, one site/task and one hour to produce a material that will be presented during three minutes, then the audience decide who the winner will be.
The battle was fierce and the audience ecstatic. The hall was filled with all kinds of weird energies and the resulting proposals were visionary to say the least. But what was really interesting was all that happened before the projects were presented and the winner was chosen. The architects usually hidden behind a desk or a computer screen became performers and suddenly architecture was all about joy and happiness. Maybe it was because of the beer or maybe it was because there simply is no time to be boring when you only have an hour to produce(/perform).
In the end activities like this are badly needed in Stockholm and it’s great to be reminded that architecture really is about having fun.
Visit the website at http://internationalarchitecturalbattle.blogspot.com
(Oh, by the way, we won)
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Posted: March 11th, 2009
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competition,
framtiden,
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A manifesto for the new economy.
Not a lot has been happening on Svensk Standard in the last months and for that we apologize. Since we’ve all been full-time practicing architects the last nine months, there hasn’t been much time for updates or independent productions. Global recession, however, is about to change all that and as our employers ask us if it would be possible for us to work part-time to ease the losses (perhaps we’ll even lose our jobs) we reply:
Hell yeah!
I know, recession is hitting hard on a lot of people right now, it’s no joking matter. It’s been tearing around the financial sector for half a year, the auto industry (Saab, we’ll miss you) is going down and by now it has spread out practically everywhere.
The architectural professions are usually among the first to suffer; when there is no money the first thing to get cancelled are those fancy new headquarters or those cool sofas you were gonna get for your living room. The clients stops calling and the architects get really moody. Because when there is a recession nothing happens.
But that is all wrong. This is when all the great things happen.
No one does anything exiting when the economy is doing well. When all that money is spinning around. We get employed, we get lazy. We go to our different offices and sit down at our desks, turn on the computer, open up outlook and wait for what the day will bring or what kind of interesting project the next phone call will offer.
Aesthetics and thought seem to suffer as well during the boom. When everything is happening super fast no one has time for reflection and great potential is reduced to cheesy one-liners (this one is for you Bjarke). Even worse, those cheesy one-liners seem to the rest of us to be viable solutions. For a moment we actually thought that stacking all those small apartments in cliché shapes of mountains or zigzag ridges were cool. And an entire generation of architecture students (and offices that’ve been around for a while but wants to freshen up their image) will now waste their energy speaking in shallow punch lines instead of searching deep as they should be. And if you were ever to criticize it, some one will say “but what about the boring stuff that you are creating?” or “just because you have a weblog with a punk name doesn’t mean you can debase others who are actually BUILDING their work”.
In general, that seems to be the most frequent argument promoting this kind of architecture – that it got built – especially in Sweden. Since the common stuff that’s produced here is of such poor quality the slightest break in this tedious flow is considered art. And the excuse is always: “Well, at least they’re doing something”. As if the real judge of our work isn’t our own full potential but the laziness of our peers.
We’re all guilty. We got carried away, got fat and lazy. No point in pushing the blame around anymore. The boom is over. But already, great things are happening.
The reason is simple. The obstacle that Paul Virilio once wrote about, the one that would unite the pacified inhabitants of our modern cities in struggle, has been found and it turned out it wasn’t a wall. Not even sloping plane.
We don’t have anything to lose anymore. We’ve hit rock bottom and the only way is up.
And what a sweet ride it will be!
Svensk Standard / Rutger
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Posted: March 3rd, 2009
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framtiden
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