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UNStudio at venice architectural biennale 08

UNStudio continues to make substantial strides in becoming “the model architectural firm” for young contemporary designers. From scale to space and even materials, they seem to be hitting on all cylinders and if this keeps up we have some gems to look forward to in the future.

Here is just another project that validates the point that was put out for the Venice Architectural Biennale 08

Site specific installation at arsenale for the 11th international architecture exhibition of la biennale di venezia

The central question behind UNStudio’s installation ‘ the changing room’ is: what are the implications for the architectural environment of the contemporary, highly unsettled and unpredictable configurations of living and working? the installation gradually instills this question by moving the visitor through different layers of meaning and sensation.

The scenario of the changing room is clear and simple. individual enters changing room; puts product to test; considers transformed self; comes to a decision and exits. during this brief interlude, the transformative potential of the material world is explored.

Conclusions that may be drawn from the selection of references, what does it say about architecture that we are tempted to make analogies with magazine culture and couture decisions. ultimately this installation is therefore about architecture itself. the venice biennale is one of the last places where architecture returns to its core identity as a spatial art form, where architecture itself can be at home in the modern world.

Images via Designboom + UNStudio

The following information is from UNStudio:
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UNStudio – The Changing Room, Venice Biennale of Architecture 2008

For this year’s international architecture biennale in Venice UNStudio has produced ‘The Changing Room’ as part of the exhibition ‘out there: architecture beyond building’ curated by Aaron Betsky.

The UNStudio installation in the Arsenale explores the transformative potential of the material world. Just like clothes designers, architects offer alternate looks and identities, age and income-appropriate shells. These constructions consist of a miscellaneous package of endogenous and exogenous values; things and ideas that inherently belong to architecture and its traditions, and things and ideas that do not, but that nevertheless profoundly influence architecture.

How to deal with this? Can architecture still have autonomy? According to UNStudio the lesson is to ‘switch it on, switch it off’… to find autonomy in brief moments of liberation.

The installation structure shows an architecture that is as supple as textile, in which floors, walls and ceilings flow into each other. On the inside, the visitor encounters a kaleidoscopic world of people posing, inviting voyeurism, and seeking transformation in their own conceptualizations of the changing room.

Credits:
UNStudio, The changing room – couture of architecture

UNStudio:
Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos with Christian Veddeler and Hans-Peter Nuenning, Steffen Riegas

Light design with:
meso digital interiors, Frankfurt

Engineering and building:
p&p gmbh, Fuerth/Odenwald

Subsidized by:
The Netherlands Architecture Fund, Rotterdam
The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Amsterdam

Sponsored by:
Arup, Amsterdam
Caparol GmbH, Ober-Ramstadt
G&S, Amsterdam
Pieters Bouwtechniek, Amsterdam
P&P GmbH, Fürth/ Odenwald
Rendertaxi, Aachen
Resopal GmbH, Gross-Umstadt
Sorba, Winterswijk

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