Brazilian Conditions: Complex and Simple

165 Pages·2006·67.093 MB·German

by  Julia Zechmeister (auth.)

Marco Winzker
Elektronik
für Entscheider
Grundwissen für
Wirtschaft und Technik
Vieweg Praxiswissen
Complex and Simple
Pro! fiddlgtr Latner
Aist. Prof. SBblm Rlis
Amt. Prof- Dimm Spath
Eiiifs by iyielf tohoutsk
instityfis for Art and ArGlilt©<styre
Amdrnmy ©f Plmi© Arts Vl©in>r6a
academy of fine arts Vienna
^ SpringerWienNewYork J 3 I
Institute for Art and Architecture
Imprint
Edited by: Studio Lainer, Institute for Art and Architecture, Vienna Academy of Fine Arts
Managing Editor: Sabina Riss
Assistance: Christoph Gahleitner, Patrick Hammer, Alexander Zach
Texts: Rudolf Kohoutek, Rudiger Lainer, Sabina Riss, Dieter Spath
Translation - German to English: Elise Feiersmger, Michael Strand
English copy editor: Jason Bergeron
German copy editor: Claudia Mazanek
Layout and Cover Design: Andrea Neuwirth
Printing and binding: Remaprint, Vienna
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even in the absence of specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
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c 2006 Sprmger-Verlag/Wien
Printed in Austria
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SPIN: 11669241
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006921736
With approx. 600 (partly coloured) Figures
ISBN-10 3-211-32192 -6 SpringerWienNewYork
ISBN-13 978-3-211-321928 SprmgerWienNewYork
Studio Lainer
Univ.-Prof. Arch. Rudiger Lainer
Institute for Art and Architecture
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Vienna, Austria
www.akbild.ac.at/ika/
[email protected]
Ph +43.1.588 16 213
2i'il^
1^'
Imprint
' Editoriar
H Introduction Rudiger Lainer
vO Brazil as Form-Operator
10 Project "A Twin for the Niteroi Contemporary Art IVIuseum"
11 Project "How to draw a City"
13 Project "Conditions - Sculpture"
14 Project "Dance Academy"
16 Guidebook - Brazilian Conditions
1o Studio Timeline
Flow
2? City Christoph Gahleitner
24 City Christina Herzog
25 City Pia Spiesberger-Hockner
26 City Johannes Flatz
Sculpture
30 Twin Julia Zechmeister
31 Twin Philipp MiJllner
32 Twin Patrick Hammer
33 City Paul Schuiz
34 City Patrick Hammer
36 City Ismail Karaduman
38 Dance Academy Alexander Zach
Drei Stadte in Brasilien - Ein anderer Schauplatz der Architektur Rudolf Kohoutek
42 Sao Paulo
•4 6 Brasilia
50 Rio de Janeiro
Motion Spaces & Body Architecture
58 Twin Ismail Karaduman
59 Sculpture Ismail Karaduman
60 Dance Academy Patrick Hammer
62 Twin Eva Born
63 Sculpture Eva Born
64 Sculpture Patrick Hammer
66 Dance Academy Pia Spiesberger-Hockner
67 Dance Academy Alexander Mayer
68 Dance Academy Ismail Karaduman
70 Dance Academy Ma reel Grabber
72 Dance Academy Philipp Mullner
Suspension
76 Twin Christina Herzog
77 Sculpture Christina Herzog
Motive der brasilianischen Architektur Studio Lainer
79 Architekturformen der Moderne
80 Patios Oder die Natur im Inneren des Gebaudes
82 Rampen
8^ Skulpturale Baukorper
86 Balken/Portikus/Brucke: eine spezifische brasilianische Raumfigur
88 Lamellen
90 ErdgeschofSzonen
92 Pflasterungen
Nature
96 Twin Marcel Grabber
97 Scurpture Marcel Grabber
99 City Alexander Mayer
100 City Simon Metzler
101 City Eva Born
Growth
104 City Tbonnas Hopfner
106 City Marcel Grabber
108 Dance Academy Johann Jobannson
110 City Alexander Zacb
How to desire Brazil? Rudolf Koboutek
114 Pbantasmen und Zeichen
116 Brasilianiscbe Moderne
120 Hauptstadt Brasilia
126 Vom Feenpalast zur Favela
Layering
132 Twin I Sculpture Alexander Mayer
133 Dance Academy Entrance Christina Herzog
134 Twin I Sculpture Pia Splesberger-Hockner
136 Dance Academy Christopb Gahleitner
Defornnation
140 Twin Christopb Gahleitner
142 Sculpture ChrJstoph Gahleitner
144 Twin Sinnon Metzler
145 Dance Academy Sinnon Metzler
146 Sculpture Simon Metzler
147 Dance Academy Entrance Ismail Karaduman
148 Twin Alexander Zacb
150 Dance Academy ThomaS Hopf ner
Lectures and Tutorials
154 Learning from Brasilia? | Francisco Holanda
154 Development Strategies for central Sao Paulo | Nadia Somekh
154 Paradigmas Urbanisticos de Brasilia | Sylvia Ficber
156 Arquitectura sin Memoria | Rodrigo Perez de Arce
156 On Beauty (of Form) and Architecture | Gabriele Reiterer
156 How to Start a City | Ernst Fuchs
158 Field Condition | Dieter Spath
160 Dance Workshop | Willi Dorner
160 Fundamentals of Design | Dieter Spath
Appendix
163 Contributors
164 Biographies
166 illustrations
167 Photo Credits
168 Bibliography
Complex and Simple
I
^^
From the start modernism in Brazil attracted a significant amount of
attention and acclaim as well as strong criticism and polemics, particularly
from the European representatives of "true" modernism. In Brazil,
modernity always signified instilling national identity through architecture,
whether in harmony or opposition to the periphery's continual disarray,
spanning European colonialism, the United States' hegemony, the shock
waves of liberalism, and the twentieth-century search for alternatives.
If one views Brazil's modernist architecture Independently of its
mythos and the deep-seated cliches, it still provides ample themes to
challenge the architectural imagination. In 2006, exactly fifty years after
Brasilia was founded, it has proven fruitful to analyse the principles and
forms of this first, and presumably last, regional version of modernism,
and to square off against the reductive effects of globalisation toward an
ahistoric, hegemonic amalgam.
Brazil as form-operator makes it hypothetically possible to open up an
unfettered, lenient space for - counter to standard building programs -
the articulation of phantasms and spatial images which have to a great
extent been done away with in the current phase of hyper-pragmatism
and hyper-media.
"Brazilian conditions" denotes those known/unknown systems of
codes and signs as a transposition field of architectural forms, myths and
energies, between the megalopolis Sao Paulo, with its seventeen-million
inhabitants, the synthetic capital Brasilia, and the thousands of favelas
housing millions of residents throughout the country.
"Brazilian Conditions - Complex and Simple" also refers to the broad
and integrative programme devised by Studio Lainer at the Institute for Art
and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, in which historical
research and "architectural fieldwork" on Sao Paulo, Brasilia and Rio de
Janeiro focused on eight motifs which were superimposed on four design
tasks.
This book documents the stations and steps of a year-long process
and is meant to give an impression of the media and research formats
selected for the project development. The studio field trip to experience
prominent examples of Brazilian modernism and their urban settings
established the intersection between the analysis and the design project.
' "="'T(>Cl'U:Ctr'«^rT Strength and Dynamics If the strength and dynamfco of archrreafj'-o-l
Rudiger Lainsr conception are found in the confrontatfon of imagination and abstrgoti/jn
with reaffty, thtri this raises the question of the didactic and structyraf
approaches that are considered adBqualB to produce this complexity-
The aim of the studio is to teach reflective, communicatfve,. an-d aolkiq
competence, [f comprehension of spatiaf and social phenomena ih b#?'f,r:ivv-i
lo go bsyoFid the mere regrstration of facts or sub|ecfiv©-irttuitive mterpre-
tatfon leading to a conceptualized reading as a morphological desfgn ogrt-
cept then msthodicaf approaches are n&BdB4.
These approaches are not ready-made solytion-s but toofs that enafcte
canceptuaf comprehension of an undassffied and rnostjy ooritfnyftrn
reality; rnsthods which s[so involve thinking on different {©vets, and fhe
capabfffty of considerfng both a given reality and its oontranetiss.
Concentration and Expansion Due to fts small number of studefTi-c fh^
academy has a fow fnstructorto student ratb, Thfs faciHtates coritinuoi;;-;,
concentrated and personal tutorrng, cresting a [aboratory of ['HtenBe and
com.mitted work, tn order to secure the efficfenoy of this conceninjlfof! ju:
a motivatmg factor m the long term, psriodfc 6xpansron m ne^edod {hruu'^^b
sefective incorporation of external (rffluences.
Specifics of the year
The year^long design programmie described [n thfs book is based or: ?j
sequence of projects of widely varying scales and degrees of abotraction,
whfch are broken down Into the foHowIng parts: Artfcufated and pro-
grammatica{[y complex object^?, city structurenr theme tasks, the ae^Aqn of
a threshold area, and a thsoratfcaf statement, Each project began wrth
formalfzatfon and concrete articulation. The resultant formiaf qijallty, thfi
''beauty'' of an object or structure, stimulated the research done ^n parailoi.
Alternstfng between abstraction and concrete artJculatlon helps ^^•tudeniT}
discover their potentials.
The- anticipation of a result without the need for a detailed under.
standing allows for a different, focused, and unhindered view of archhec-
tural thinking and action.. The resulting designs are material tor re1ieci-;on,
for ''thinking beyond one's limits" and exploring expanded posGibiiiiief;
Some of the authors of the submitted works accepted the wik ot
somietimes going astray, which in miost cases led to remarkable soiutions.
These are- projects that are off the beaten path, which bring us dormer to
ths ultimate goal of this studio: supporting the development of ereative
and critical architecture students.
Brazil as Form-Operator
Brazilian Conditions - Connplex and Sinnple addresses spatial concepts
and architectural elennents of a distinct nnanifestation in the history of
architecture - Brazilian modernisnn fronn 1930 to 1960, and thereafter -
as the point of departure for experinnents with processes of form.
If at first this Brazilian vigour provided a source of innages for the
year-long project at Studio Lainer at the Acadenny of Fine Arts Vienna, the
students could subsequently reflect on the "originals" by employing the
perceptual filter in their designs. It was not a nnatter of merely alluding to
the formal vocabulary of Brazil's modernist Style architecture, but in inve
stigating in depth spatial concepts and development of forms with the
projects on location. This applied most directly to the Twin Project, a pro
vocative and paradoxical task involving the siting of formal elements and
space - as an operator for analysis of principles next to one of Oscar
NIemeyer's canonical projects, the Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum, a
spectacular structure in Rio de Janeiro's bay.
The second design project called for organising an urban "field" for
250,000 inhabitants, a new take on the design of the synthetic capital
Brasilia. The third project was a research project involving the exploration
of the general tenets of Brazil's modern art and architecture.
The claim that in Brazilian culture the relationship to the physical is
pronounced and intense - initially corresponding to the hackneyed per
ception of Brazil's semiotic space - would eventually lead the students,
through their designs for a dance academy, to an expanded spectrum of
spatial concepts and architectural elements.
Eight central motifs in Brazilian architecture structure the book;
each project was linked to one of the following themes: Flow,
Sculpture, Motion Spaces & Body Architecture, Suspension, Nature,
Growth, Layering and Deformation.
The research and design projects were compiled for a working travel
handbook, a method of active preparation regarding the locations which
would be visited. In the spring of 2005 the entire studio went on a field
trip to Brazil. Impressions of this trip turn up as a parallel narrative through
out the book. Photos of associative images are placed next to projects
which exhibit formal parallels, conveying the reciprocity between the
Brazilian Conditions and the articulation of the designs.
Three german essays strewn between the projects shed light on the
trip and illustrate the backdrop of Brazilian Conditions, including the refe
rence to the architectural history of Brazilian motifs, a contemporary look
at Brasilia, and an assessment of the current state of the favela.
Brief reports on the interaction with Brazilian architects and
researchers round out the project.