Today about 60% of the Viennese population live in municipally built, owned or managed housing and the city clearly controls its housing market. This is a different condition than exists in the United States where, in most cases, the private market is the provider of housing and is relied upon even to rehabilitate existing neighborhoods and create new communities.

To expand this architectural and urban discussion, the curators invited Vancouver and Vienna based artists and cultural researchers Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber to look at these communal spaces and concepts and speculate on how they resonate within artistic and cultural practices. Their selection of art projects and public works will accompany, reflect upon, and contextualize the selected examples and also shape the format of the exhibition and publication.

The Vienna Model is curated by Wolfgang Förster and William Menking, and is brought to Vancouver on the initiative of Urban Subjects (Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, Helmut Weber), an artist collective based in both Vancouver and Vienna.

www.museumofvancouver.ca

Space is experienced not only visually, but with all the senses. Despite this, the design and reception of architecture often barely take haptic, acoustic, and osmic perceptions into account. Consequently, in the architecture discipline there is no continuous discourse on the topic of spatial perception. GAM.13 Spatial Expeditions seeks to fill this gap. The method of the expedition enables an experimental approach and provides the opportunity to gain new insights and perspectives with regard to built space. It explores perceptual techniques from the fields of architecture, the visual arts, music, dance and other related disciplines. GAM.13 therefore represents an expedition into experimental architecture and the unexplored aspects of built space. 

Moderation: Anselm Wagner
About the issue: Irmgard Frank, Claudia Gerhäusser, Franziska Hederer
Greetings: Stefan Peters
Buffet: AZ3 und AZ4

www.tugraz.at

The Goethe-Institut and the Bucharest City Hall represented by ARCUB – the Centre for Cultural Projects of the Municipality of Bucharest invite you to the opening of the exhibition “ACTOPOLIS | The Art of Action”.

All over the world, cities are facing challenges. How can we make a success out of the endeavour to develop and keep the urban space as a common space for society, even during times when it is capitalized and privatized? What is the part played by art, culture, architecture, self-organized action and activism?

During the past few years, artists, architects, philosophers, urbanists and activists from seven different European cities tackled these aspects within the project ACTOPOLIS | The Art of Action. The exhibition sets forth examples of projects from Ankara/Mardin, Athens, Bucharest, Belgrade, Oberhausen, Sarajevo and Zagreb. The materials coming from the over 45 individual projects make up a substantial portfolio of possibilities for transforming and improving the cities we live in. The exhibition (design NODE, Berlin – Oslo and SSW Architekten, Berlin) offers inspiration and concrete impulses to act.

In Romania, the project “Bucharest South. Build your own city!” will be presented at the Goethe-Institut, str. Tudor Arghezi 8-10, Bucharest, between April 6 to 26

Opening: Wednesday, 5th April, 6:30 pm
Exhibition Duration: 6th – 26th April

“The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945” is the first major UK exhibition to focus on Japanese domestic architecture from the end of the Second World War to now, a field which has consistently produced some of the most influential and extraordinary examples of modern and contemporary design.

In the wake of the war, the widespread devastation of Tokyo and other cities in Japan brought an urgent need for new housing, and the single family house quickly became the foremost site for architectural experimentation and debate. In the years following, Japanese architects have consistently used their designs to propose radical critiques of society and innovative solutions to changing lifestyles. Considering developments in residential architecture in the light of important shifts in the Japanese economy, urban landscape, and family structure, The Japanese House presents some of the most exciting architectural projects of the last 70 years, many of which have never before been exhibited in the UK. As well as architectural projects, the exhibition incorporates cinema, photography and art in order to cast new light on the role of the house in Japanese culture.