Embassies Project - architeria.eu

EMBASSIES PROJECT
London Festival of Architecture / British Council
20 June - 20 July 2008
London


ARGENTINE EMBASSY

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
ARDI in London

Daniel Silberfaden, President of SCA and curator of ARDI (architecture)
Ricardo Blanco, Curator of ARDI (Industrial Design)
Roberto Busnelli, Hernán Bisman and DI Martín Wolfson, editing team and procuction of the exhibition
Hernán Berdichevsky and Gustavo Stecher, Graphic Design of the London Exhibition and of the Buenos
Aires event

During the first years of the 21st Century, Argentina underwent a major social and economic crisis.
As a result, architectural work and the design of related products were at a standstill. However, young
architects and designers did not remain inactive, on the contrary, they resisted in different ways: they
not only continued to design but decided to undertake self-production, thus becoming design editors
and professionals in the industry. Many leading companies also understood that that was the answer
and opted for quality and design as a way of counteracting the indifference of a society that was
crippled by the crisis.

This exhibition, an offspring of the ARDI series, features building and construction solutions developed
by current Argentine designers. All buildings and works selected for the exhibition reflect a close blending
of both disciplines either in the architectural work or as part of interior design in different forms: homes,
contract, hospitality, offices and others. ARDI showed that Argentine architecture and design are in good
standing and strongly interdisciplinary. This exhibition reflects architectural works that have been
conceived hand in hand with design, works in which young architects and designers have worked as
a team to offer the best their disciplines can achieve when blended together.

The Buenos Aires School, a generic name given to the last thirty years of teaching of architecture in our city,
has emphasized the "parti" concept, or “architecture of ideas”, as a paradigm for architectural projects.
This statement enjoys broad consensus, is entrenched in the education of all current Argentine architects,
and is being reviewed by a generation of young architects for whom the parts of the work are as important
as the whole, or even more.
The authors of the works selected for this exhibition belong to this new generation of architects. The idea
is to show the materialization of architectural works in a way that reflects the initial approach, where
the initial perception and understanding and -most importantly- the solutions found, are part of a process
that leads to the construction of the buildings and all of its parts and details, products and elements.

Reflecting their personal points of view, the selected teams of architects and designers present an
interdisciplinary, regional and contemporary solution to approach the reality of architectural work in
our context. A jury formed by distinguished architects and designers is in charge of selecting 20 works
in which young architects and designers have interacted to create high quality buildings in the 9 subject
areas proposed for this event.

The exhibition system has been especially developed by a team formed by an architect, an industrial designer
and a panel editor; the panels will show images, drawings, photographs and texts of the selected works.
This multifaceted panel of more than 15 meters in length shall illustrate the material especially edited for this
event and shall be located at the centre of the Argentine space as a self-supporting assembly, articulating
communication with the visitors.

This exhibition will be shown at:
The Argentine Embassy
65 Brook Street, London W1K 4AH

For more information please contact:
Javier Pedrazzini: javierpedrazzini@yahoo.com.ar

AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
More Opportunities
Barbara Holub

The Austrian Cultural Forum London presents More Opportunities, based on the first UK solo exhibition at
the Plymouth Arts Centre in 2007. Holub, based in Vienna, is an artist, architect and urban designer whose
work examines social and personal identities through the modes of visual art, urban intervention and
architecture.

More Opportunities addresses issues of regeneration and the search of a new identity of a place and its
people – symptomatic to many areas around England. Holub examines areas of significant identity
transformation relating to the people in and outside the borders and boundaries that occupy the area.
An unclear identity, resulting from the ongoing process of transformation of one’s own environment,
is accompanied by the hope and generalised desire for ‘more opportunities’.

For more information please contact:
Vanessa Fewster Vanessa.fewster@bmeia.gv.at
Address:
Austrian Cultural Forum
28 Rutland Gate, London SW7 1PQ


CANADIAN HIGH COMMISSION

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Vancouverism: New Westcoast Architecture and City-building

High-rise, high-amenity, and high-design urban living are the watch-words in the summer-long
“Vancouverism” exhibition at Canada House.
Architectural and city-building innovations in Canada’s Pacific portal over the past half century have
turned Vancouver into a verb, with architects and planners in the United States and the Middle East
now speaking of “Vancouverizing” their own metropolises.

Vancouverism begins over half a century ago with a single instance of prescient paper architecture—
Arthur Erickson’s visionary “Project 56” sketch—a massive range of housing sweeping up from English
Bay to challenge the height of snow-capped mountains behind. A decade later, Erickson’s MacMillan Bloedel
Building may be the best Brutalist office tower anywhere, and in the mid-70s, his Robson Square won
global laudits as a downtown set-piece combing lush gardens, government offices, space-framed law
courts and an Edwardian courthouse turned art gallery, all set over three entire city blocks.

Two Robson Square project architects have since gone on to re-make the city in their own right, and are also
featured in the London exhibition. Bing Thom is re-invigorating Vancouver’s multi-ethnic suburbs with fine
public spaces, innovative architecture, and unexpected combinations of ever more intensive uses of land in
“Surrey Central City” and “Aberdeen Centre.”
Ex-Erickson staffer James K.M. Cheng’s “Residences on Georgia” and now “Spectrum: Four Condo
Towers over Costco Store,” are amongst the finest architectural resolutions of Vancouver’s characteristic
housing typology of thin-towers-on-continuous-townhouse-bases. The last of the four firms featured in the
Canada House exhibition are engineers Fast + Epp. They have collaborated with all of these firms, but are
increasingly recognised in their own right as global leaders in applications of sustainably-harvested BC
engineered wood, notably their massive all-wooden roof for the 2010 Winter Olympics Speed Skating Oval.

Using drawings, models, photographs, videos and a stunning temporary demonstration construction
of stacked serpentines in sustainably-harvested British Columbia timber, “Vancouverism: New Westcoast
Architecture and City-Building” - curated by Trevor Boddy and Dennis Sharp - shows how one of North
America’s most unusual and creative young cities has transformed, now shaping housing and public
spaces world-wide. Green, global, and generous of spirit, Vancouver may be the city of the future.

Canada House, Trafalgar Square
Pall Mall East, SW1Y 5BJ
June 24 – August 31, 2008
Open weekdays 10am – 6pm
Media contact:
Jennifer Brown
Media Relations Officer
tel: 0207-258-6557
jennifer.brown@international.gc.ca


COLOMBIAN EMBASSY

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
The Revival of a City

Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, has experienced a remarkable revival over the past 15 years that has
radically transformed a city formerly known for its traffic jams, privatized public spaces and an absence
of citizen culture, into a successful case of urban development through public management and civic culture
promotion. This urban transformation is rendered visually in this exhibition: “The Revival of a City”.

The exhibit is composed of 40 panels that show the urban transformation of Bogotá through the following
thematic schemes: the city, urban interventions, civic culture, social inclusion and the promotion of culture.
The exhibit emphasizes the visual aspect of urban transformation, which includes transportation
improvements within the city, new public buildings in poor areas, and rescued public spaces, such
as parks and sports courts.

More public space, cycling ways and nature for people. The visual aspect of this type of transformation
is fundamental, and an exhibit is an excellent way to disseminate the lessons learned.

This exhibit presented by the Embassy of Colombia will be held from July 16 to July 25 at:
St. Columba’s Church of Scotland
Pont Street
London SW1X 0BD
Near Tube Station: Knightsbridge
For more information please contact:
Edwin Ostos: e.ostos@colombianembassy.co.uk


EMBASSY OF COSTA RICA

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Projects by Diego Vanderlaat, architecture students from the Veritas University and Juan Carlos Sanabria.

Three projects from architects who live and work in Costa Rica will be our contribution to the Embassies
Project of this year’s London Festival of Architecture.

The first project, by Diego Vanderlaat, will show a series from sanjosereves, a Costa Rican based office that
started practice at the beginning of 2007. The project’s aim is not only to portray buildings as finished pieces
or isolated objects but also to analyze the process that lead to their development. This exhibition will be
arranged in three different scales: SCALE 1 is a series of insertions of small architectonic pieces onto
San Jose’s intricate urban fabric. These proposals were developed and built throughout 2007 (a coffee
module, a storage graft, a reading space, among others). SCALE 2 is a medium size office building in the city
centre, developed behind the former walls of an abandoned house. SCALE 3 is a three-story office building
for the travel agency Costa Rican Trails. Its construction will start at the end of this year.

The second project, by a group of students of architecture from the Veritas University in Costa Rica,
attempts to present a detoxication solution for San José’s “car-o-holic” lifestyle. The city’s dependency
on cars is fragmenting the urban sphere, which raises the need for urban re_HAB, a 12 step program
intended to break citizens’ dependency on cars as the primary source of transportation within the city.
It begins with a study and analysis of the symptoms and characteristics of the city; is followed by a plan
to fight the car thirst and further the administration of a drug to consolidate a specific area of effect;
and ends with a follow up plan to consolidate the effect and extend the influence to other zones within the city.

The final project, by Juan Carlos Sanabria, from the Costa Rican architectural firm M+S Architecture, displays
works from the firm completed between 2002 and 2008 which explores the spatialization of a diverse
residential built environment. Site, culture, programme and materials are seen as creative forces that develop
and direct spatial explorations.

For more information please contact:
Sylvia Ugalde crconsulate@btconnect.com


CZECH CULTURAL CENTRE

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Benelon

The Czech Centre London presents the third installation of a clever and provocative project by Agents,
a group of young Czech architects with contributions from many international leading architectural practices
and masters, including Eva Jiricna, Lars Spuybroek of NOX and Ben van Berkel and Caroline Boss of the
UN Studio among others.

Benelon examines the connections and interrelations between two places: London and Benesov, a small
town in the Czech Republic. Agents have created the virtual town of Benelon, taking fragments of reality
from both places and letting them interact together. Following two successful exhibitions in the Centre
of Central European Architecture in Prague and Museum of Art in Benesov, Benelon is visiting London
to re-examine its original context after having mutated heavily through the inputs of many contributors
(who became Beneloners) during the two previous interactive installations.

Agents are Vendula Hladikova, Bernard Storch and Stepan Toman who studied architecture in Prague
and later all moved to London to work in various architectural practices, such as Kohn Pedersen
Fox Architects and Eva Jiricna Architects.

The exhibition will be shown at:
St. Olave’s School
Tooley Street, London

For more information please contact:
Ms Petra Storchova storchova@czechcentre.org.uk
tel. 0207 307 5180
www.czechcentre.org.uk


DANISH CULTURAL INSTITUTE

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Co-Evolution
Presented by the Danish Architecture Centre

The exhibition which has come to life in collaboration between UiD, DAC | Danish Architecture Centre,
four Danish architectural offices - CEBRA, COBE, EFFEKT, TRANSFORM - and professors and students
from four Chinese universities - Tsinghua, CQU, Tongji, XAUAT - won the Golden Lion award at the
Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2006.

The exhibition CO-EVOLUTION explores new ways of creating sustainable planning solutions to urban
development in China. It highlights the current change in focus from aesthetics of buildings to their
problem solving capabilities and relevance to global issues. Since 2006 its open minded designs and
forward-looking ideas for sustainable urban planning has provided the backdrop for international and
cross disciplinary debates around the world. In 2006 it was shown on Tianmen Square as part of the
Beijing Biennale, and in 2007 it was shown at the Architecture Biennale in São Paulo.

CO-EVOLUTION tells the story of how a new generation of Danish and Chinese architects create
visionary yet practical proposals for development of sustainable cities in the 21st century.
The exhibition presents new models for holistic, large scale, urban planning; integrating local needs,
knowledge and low-tech solutions with cutting edge expertise and technologies.
The four projects - and the underlying research that comprise the exhibition - confront a wide variety
of economic, environmental, social, and cultural issues related to China’s urbanization.

The exhibition will be shown at:
St Olave's School
Tooley Street
London SE1
For more information please contact:
Soren Sonderstrup, tel: +45 22 41 19 26 ssp@dac.dk


EMBASSY OF DENMARK

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Sustainable Danish architecture
Curated by Vibeke Grupe Larsen
Exhibition design by Wayne Hemingway

The Embassy of Denmark is going to host an architecture exhibition at the LFA displaying some of the most
remarkable sustainable projects by Danish architects since 2000.

The exhibition will include more than 20 projects by architectural firms including C.F. Møller, Schmidt Hammer
Lassen, Arkitema, 3xNielsen, Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects, Henning Larsen Architects, Dissing and Weitling
as well as a number of young talents.

The term “sustainability” is, in this exhibition, to be considered from a broader perspective. It covers not only
carbon neutral building, though this is an underlying theme, but also a building practice that incorporates
a contextual approach towards the surrounding environment/ society.

The exhibition will be based on five central themes covering this broader understanding of “sustainability”:
carbon neutrality, learning, life between buildings, design and quality of life.

The curator is architect Vibeke Grupe Larsen, who is a well known specialist within the field of sustainable
architecture in Denmark, www.vglcph.dk . The exhibition design will be made by designer/ urban planner /
professor and writer Wayne Hemingway, www.hemingwaydesign.co.uk.

As part of a shared Danish agenda in promoting new strategies for sustainable architecture and urban
design, The Danish Embassy and the Danish Architecture Center will join forces in arranging related
events, such as guided exhibition tours, talks and seminars throughout the festival month most
of which will be coordinated together with the RIBA.

For more information please contact:
Inge Henningsen, Culture and Press Section, inghen@um.dk + 44 (0) 20 7333 0246


EMBASSY OF FINLAND

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Learning Environments
Curated by Matti Karjanoja

Finland's main theme for the 2008 London Festival of Architecture will be cosiness and humaneness
in education and learning environments.

There will be outlines, plans and realized works of day-care centres, schools, universities and libraries
on display. We will introduce around ten architects and buildings. The Finnish participants primarily represent
a generation of young Finnish architects. Lots of wood is used as it is a natural raw material for Finnish
buildings. Wood softens a building’s face, atmosphere and ambiance.

For more information please contact:
Mr Matti Karjanoja, Architect and Curator of the Finnish exhibition: matti.karjanoja@mmk.fi
Ms Anneli Halonen, Counsellor for Cultural Affairs Embassy of Finland: anneli.halonen@formin.fi


EMBASSY OF GEORGIA

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
imma installation
Curated by the imma artists association

- Architecture freezes time. It is a record of emotion and an idea of a specific moment in time and space.
Emotion can be only one and the reaction is the result of intersecting electromagnetic impulses -

What is imma? imma stands for immaterial. imma is an association of artists and thinkers established recently
in London. We are curators for the events within the Embassies Project as a part of LFA2008. In this project,
we have involved young architects and artists from two architectural schools in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Here we will hold an exhibition of art works done by young Georgian architects and artists.
We have consciously concentrated on bringing out young talent because we strongly believe that FRESH
and raw ideas can naturally flow from fresh minds.

Apart from the main exhibition and art installation, the venue will hold weekend lecture talks, which will be
followed by a specially made breakfast installation for visitors.
The main external installation will be an attempt to visualize our approach to matters in architecture. There will
also be a presentation to discuss this theme, followed by a small theatrical act ending with a manifesto written
by the imma group.
- How do we define the threshold between material and immaterial?
- What does the border between the two objects consists of?
- How does mental imagery create objects?
- When and how is architecture being born?

This exhibition will be shown at :
Embassy of Georgia
4 Russell Gardens, London W14 8EZ
For more information please contact:
Lasha Mamaladze archistudios@gmail.com


EMBASSY OF GUATEMALA

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Refreshing Architecture by the lakeside, Atitlan Lake, Guatemala
Project by architect Eduardo Aguirre

Architect Eduardo Aguirre and his team have been working on this innovative project, commissioned by
the government of Guatemala after the Tropical Storm Stan destroyed the accommodation and livelihood
of the indigenous community in the area of Santiago Atitlan.

The plan implies a fresh concept that includes a creative way to promote reconstruction, with a participative
design and full involvement of the Mayan community, rescuing values and integrating them in the project.
The result has been not only the construction of houses with space to cultivate but also the integration
of tourism as a new and additional way of life for the whole community. In the place where the houses
have been built, an archaeological site was found and that has been wisely added to the project,
guaranteeing its sustainability.

For more information please contact:
Rosa Arias-Yagüe secretary.gtm@btconnect.com


HUNGARIAN CULTURAL CENTRE

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Scattered House
Curators: Attila Nemes (Budapest), Edwin Heathcote (London)

Representing Hungary at the London Festival of Architecture 2008, Scattered House is an architectural
experiment founded on a truly contemporary notion of space, where issues of ubiquitous connectivity,
family diasporas, design-by-occupant, and public control technology come together in an installation
assembled from 20,000 electronic toys and gadgets. Installed in several locations across London and
Budapest, the networked House appeals to the “scattered” identity of contemporary citizens: across
nations, disciplines, interests and attitudes.

The Scattered House takes places in three locations: the Hungarian Cultural Centre in London; the Event
Gallery, one of London's contemporary architecture and new media galleries; and the Kitchen Budapest
medialab. Our site-specific installation incorporates the properties, contents and characteristics of all three
sites, and encourages visitors to configure the interiors according to their own desires and fantasies,
and with the assistance of cheap sensors and drives from everyday toys. The interiors and connections
between the sites depend entirely on how visitors use make use of the premises, and to what extent
they allow their imaginations to overcome the boundaries between communication, and physics.

Founded upon Reorient, Hungary’s Pavilion at the 10th Venice Biennale of Architecture, dubbed one of
2006’s finest by Financial Times cultural critic Edwin Heathcote, and Reconfigurable House, commissioned
for the 10th anniversary exhibition at Tokyo’s Interactive Communication Centre, Scattered House goes
back to basics, and focuses on four core issues: real-time connectivity with remote locations; the notion
and reality of home as a composite of fragments; blurring the distinction between “virtual” and “real”
and “remote”; and open-source public participation.

Playing on and responding to the interstices of architecture, self, space and technology, Scattered House
invites us to participate in reconstructing the notion of home.

For reservations please call 0207 240 6162 or e-mail press@hungary.org.uk
The exhibition can be viewed between Friday, 20 June and Friday, 18 July at the Hungarian Cultural
Centre by appointment only.

Hungarian Cultural Centre
10, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden
WC2E 7NA


ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project Sustainab.Italy
Contemporary Ecologies. Energies for Italian architecture.
Curated by Luca Molinari

Organized within the framework of the London Festival of Architecture 2008, the event is an illustrated
overview of new Italian architecture focusing on sustainability. Young Italian designers look at the current, fast-changing reality and indicate a feasible Italian approach
to sustainable architecture, where cultural and architectural heritage and the landscape are used
and safeguarded as primary and essential resources.
It consists of a DVD presentation and related exhibition.

The presentation will be given by the curator of the project, architect Luca Molinari, and will be followed
by a discussion by a small international panel.

Tuesday 24 June 7pm
Venue: Italian Cultural Institute
39 Belgrave Square
London SW1X 8NX
The event is free, but booking is essential on 020 7396 4430

The project was developed in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities
- General Directorate for landscape quality and protection, contemporary art and architecture and
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - General Directorate for cultural promotion and cooperation.

The exhibition is open from 25 June to 20 July
Monday - Friday, 10am-6pm
Venue: Viabizzuno showroom
122 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 6ST
In collaboration with Viabizzuno srl


EMBASSY OF JAPAN

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Craft in Context
Work from Toh Shimazaki Architecture Forums

‘Craft In Context’ is an exhibition and lecture series to be held at the Embassy of Japan in London.

This exhibition will present the work of students from the 2006 and 2007 Toh Shimazaki Architecture
Forums alongside that of the renowned UK and Japanese architecture practices that have taught on the
course and aided in its realisation. Invitees include Stirling Prize nominees Haworth Tompkins, architect
and critic Sohei Imamura of Atelier Imamu, Patrick Lynch of Lynch Architects and Deborah Saunt of DSDHA.
The work of the invited practices and the forum students is influenced by the notion of craft and context.
The latter will be presenting their experimental responses to current and historical living patterns and
activities on specific sites in Lambeth and Earls Court.

The students from Japan and the UK developed their ideas through personal engagement with the context
by focusing on one or two aspects of each of the sites such as an existing gate, a tree, the quality of light
or the threshold to the site. Each student then developed a proposal through craft-work to highlight and
challenge the specific characteristics and phenomena of these sites.

Toh Shimazaki Architecture Forum is an annual summer school for Japanese and British architecture
students run by London practice Toh Shimazaki Architecture. It aims to teach and encourage young
architects from both countries to realise personal and context-driven solutions to ambitious schemes.

A series of lectures and debates between the architects and students at the Japanese Embassy are
scheduled to run alongside the exhibition and a book showcasing the work of the Forum’s students
will be produced as a catalogue.

Toh Shimazaki Architecture is a design led architecture practice based in Central London. The practice was
founded in 1997 by Yuli Toh and Takero Shimazaki, who have worked for international practices the Richard
Rogers Partnership and Itsuko Hasegawa Atelier.

The exhibition will be shown at:
Embassy of Japan
101-104 Piccadilly
London W1J 7JT
+44 (0)20 7465 6580
For more information please contact: simon.wright@jpembassy.org.uk


MEXICAN EMBASSY

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
mAxico
Architecture from Mexico
Curated by Renata Becerril

The Mexican Embassy presents an exciting program for the Embassies Project that includes an exhibition
that challenges ideas on architecture and its representations, a map of city experiences to encounter
Mexico’s architecture and culture in London, and a talk by a leading architect from Mexico.
The exhibition presents the dynamic, complex and often contradictory architectural scene of Mexico today.
Architecture in its broader definition is presented, expressed in experimental ways and through new ideas,
which are tested and explored through the commissioned work exhibited.

Five up-and-coming Mexican architects and designers including Re-CURSO Studio, a practice concerned
with ecological issues, and Ariel Rojo, who blends the boundaries between architecture and design, will
present their ideas and thoughts to provide a fascinating insight into contemporary Mexican architecture.
The commissioned pieces, rather than presenting isolated buildings, will reveal new essences
of architecture, ideas, utopias, desires and fragments of visions that are meaningful and are not indifferent
to what happens to the cities’ inhabitants.

As a way of prolonging the experience with Mexican architecture beyond the exhibition space, a map
that shows spots in London, from works by Mexican architects to emerging restaurants, will be a guide
to encounter Mexican culture within the city.
An internationally known Mexican architect will talk about issues on the present and future of contemporary
Mexican architecture.

The exhibition is curated by Renata Becerril, a Design Curator graduted from Kingston University and
the Design Museum, who has worked at Vitra Design Museum and initiated a design curating think-tank
called Design Curatorial Projects (DCP) encompassing projects such as the Collection of Mexican Design.

mAxico will show at the Royal Institute of British Architects from 20 June to 20 July:
66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD
Florence Hall
Monday to Friday 8am-6pm
Saturday 9am-4pm
The talk will be at the Instituto Cervantes on 24 June (time to be confirmed):
102 Eaton Square, London SW1 9AN
For more information please contact Renata Becerril: renatabecerril@gmail.com


EMBASSY OF THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
The Urban Tendency

The Urban Tendency takes Hans Ibeling's ‘Horror Vaccuii’ project, that examined the renewal of
architectural interest in the ‘compact city’, the intrinsically urban, as its starting point and build on
and extend its discussions to other locales. In other locations, for example, the driving forces
for reinvigorating the urban environment might be different from in the Netherlands. But there is,
nonetheless, similar evidence of the zeitgeist –arguably appearing in the 1990s- speaking of an interest
in the city as a place to both live and work.

The Urban Tendency is collaboration between the Dutch Architecture Institute, the University of Westminster
Architecture School, The Embassy of the Kingdom of The Netherlands in the UK, The Flemish Representation
in the UK and The British Council.
The exhibition will take Ibeling's project as its starting point and develop it into a 'dialogue' project in which
the curators trace themes raised by 'Horror Vaccuii' through architecture and urban planning projects from
within the Netherlands, Flanders, the UK and other locales that both present and extend some of the key
the discussions raised in 'Horror Vaccuii'.

The large-scale exhibition project will present a broad range of artefacts and phenomena that highlight these
issues, focussing on architectural manifestations, but also tracing how these themes and ideas have been
picked up in contemporaneous art, design and 'lifestyle' objects speaking of 'the Urban Tendency'.
It is envisaged that this approach not only increases the appeal of the project, but will encourage
the 'non-specialist' public to make the connections between architectural and urban planning thought
and practice and its connections to the daily processes of life within these evolving urban environments.

Whereas architecture and planning have often demonstrated the Utopian and positive drives for engaging
with this renewed interest in the compact urban environment, contemporary art, by contrast, has often
offered a critique or remained somewhat ambivalent towards the contemporary city. Some artists,
however, prefer to turn their attention to the formal issues of the city in their manifestation of art works.
The project will take the form of a substantial exhibition of works by international architects, planners
and artists at P3, University of Westminster, opening on 19 June 2008.

For more information please contact:
Daphne Thissen, Cultural attaché:
daphne.thissen@minbuza.nl


EMBASSY OF PERU

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Growing Pains: The ‘Re-invasion’ of the Shantytown
Curated by Manuel Mindreau

Since being founded by the Spanish in 1535, the city of Lima has undergone various periods of urban
renewal and expansion. By the beginning of the 20th century, the city grew mostly towards the south
and then absorbed the surrounding towns of Miraflores, Barranco, Chorillos, Magdalena and the port of Callao.
However, it was only after World War II that hundreds of thousands of people from the Andean highlands
moved to Lima in search of a brighter future, generating significant demographic growth in the Peruvian capital.
From an estimated population of 540,000 in 1940, this figure roughly doubled by the 1960s, and grew almost
tenfold in the next half-century. With over 9 million inhabitants in 2007, Metropolitan Lima concentrates
approximately one third of the entire population of the country.

Given the lack of appropriate accommodation in existing urban areas, newcomers had no other option but
to settle down in the outskirts of the city by invading unoccupied land, which became to be known in Peru
as ‘pueblos jóvenes’, ‘barriadas’ or ‘asentamientos humanos’. This appropriation has taken place in the
rather inhospitable sandy areas of the Peruvian coastal region which encircle the valleys shaped along
the few rivers running down to the Pacific Ocean from the Andes. In the fairly foggy weather that
predominates all year round in the dunes and deserts around Lima, the new settlers learnt to blend
into the landscape by ingeniously devising a basic housing structure built with ‘esteras’ –a reasonably cheap,
flexible sheet resembling a ‘rush mat’ made of straw. This precarious architectural element is assembled
together by means of a simple wooden structure to support it and constitutes the preferred model for
habitation used in Peruvian shantytowns. It is estimated that 35% of Lima’s population lives in these kinds
of squatter settlements.

Within the framework of LFA 2008, the Embassy of Peru in the United Kingdom – with the collaboration
of five young Peruvian architects currently living and working in London – will present an exhibition
of hypothetical architectural projects which embark upon the exploration of ideas, concepts, theories
and utopias in relation to the urban amalgam originated from the expansion of shantytowns around
the city of Lima in recent decades. The abstract yet innovative visions introduced by the various
architects participating in this initiative have been unquestionably inspired by the parallel growth
and peculiar coexistence of traditional urban centres along with the non-traditional, unregulated
and rather chaotic processes of urban settlement that have surfaced in the surroundings of the
enlarging metropolis.

Architecture has more often than not been considered the precinct of large-scale, futuristic models for
the city. By refocusing its attention to the existing clash between formal and informal approaches
to urban growth in developing countries –taking Lima as a case study–, the exhibition endeavours first
and foremost to raise awareness about this entangling and potentially unsustainable situation.
Likewise, drawing on the diverse backgrounds, interests and approaches used by this talented group
of architects, these ‘fresh’ proposals challenge existing perceptions about architecture and, by using
scarce resources available to squatters, intend to rediscover popular idiosyncrasy and inventiveness
–nurtured by modern-day life aesthetics and values– as means of dealing with practical problems in
contemporary urban development in Peru.

The architects included in this exhibition also took part in the show ‘Emergent Processes: Peruvian Architects
Working in the UK’ (Lima, January-February 2008), organised by the Cultural Peruvian-British Association,
where they showed various projects conducted under their responsibility for well-known London-based
architectural firms like Zaha Hadid Architects; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill; Grimshaw Architects; and HOK
International Limited for which they currently work.

For more information please contact:
Embassy of Peru
52 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9SP
Tel. +44 (0) 207 235 1917
www.peruembassy-uk.com


Guillermo Pardavé, Cultural Attaché
gpardave@peruembassy-uk.com
Curator: Manuel Mindreau
mmindreau@artnet.com
Participant Architects
Alberto Domínguez, Federico Dünkelberg, Sophie Le Bienvenu, Vladimir Kalinowski, Lucía Pflucker


POLISH CULTURAL INSTITUTE

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Truthtag

Truth is a pseudonym of Krystian Czaplicki; intervention artist, painter and sculptor but officially
industrial designer.
Truth’s project ‘Truthtag’, especially commissioned by the Polish Cultural Institute, is part of The London
Festival of Architecture as well as the Urban Street Hunt in the Southwark and South Bank hub,
curated by The Architecture Foundation. The site will be disclosed closer to the time of the Festival.
It is the first site specific work in the UK for the artist and for the Polish Cultural Institute and presents
the opportunity to discover, as described by himself, ‘a constructivism mash up’; placing what is old and
proven in new contexts.

Truthtag considers a city as 3D painting, a huge canvas that you can experiment on with its composition,
form, colour as well as passers-by, architecture and strange situations. Form of his works is strongly
related to graffiti, graphic and architecture. Most of his work can be considered as discrete sabotage
and soothe of uncontrollable element of degradation and accumulation.
Truth had many solo exhibitions in Poland and took part in group exhibitions in Switzerland.

For more information please contact:
Paulina Latham, Polish Cultural institute
paulinalatham@polishculture.org.uk


ROMANIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
New Bucharest Market
by TransCentralUrban Bucharest (TUB)
Curated by Mihnea Mircan

Bucharest looks today like an intricate layering of ‘emergencies’. The remains of early modernism, the
dysfunctional structures left behind by communist megalomania and the current unbridled expansion
of urban space shape a gridlocked city that needs a vision for development.
New Bucharest Market will present the TUB project (Transcentral Urban Bucharest), a collaboration between
14 architecture studios in Bucharest, which seeks to redefine the city identity by fostering social,
cultural and environmental initiatives.

New Bucharest Market will go live in Bucharest in May. A mobile market for ideas and products of social
and urban regeneration will circulate the map described by TUB. Architects will engage passers-by on
issues of alternative transportation, city identity, cultural diversity, organic urban farming, pedestrian
routes and environmental concerns. ‘Producer’ and ‘buyer’ will negotiate the immediate future of the city.
Architectural expertise, public needs and expectations will be tasted and tested, tried out and debated.

The exhibition at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London will consist of a photo-video documentation
of the market event in Bucharest. The stalls will chart the exhibition space, both outside and inside the
Institute at 1 Belgrave Square. They will function as props for a performance in which the architects
will advocate their project to visitors.
The exhibition includes also works by some of the best young Romanian artists, who will respond to the
‘market of architecture’. Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor will present the Infobox project, a model of a typical
Bucharest apartment transformed into an outdoor exhibition gallery; Vlad Nanca will engage the political
symbolism of the building of the Institute; Daniel Gontz’s installation will apply the principles of Tetris to
architecture; Ciprian Muresan will propose an ironic reinterpretation of the Communist Manifesto; and
Alexandra Croitoru will install a free hot chocolate vendor, humorously fusing ideas of monumentality
and relational aesthetics.

The exhibition will be shown at:
Romanian Cultural Institute
1 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PH
T: +4420 7752 0134
For more information please contact:
Simona Nastac: simona.nastac@icr-london.co.uk T: + 4420 7752 0134


EMBASSY OF SWEDEN

London Festival of Architecture 2008: Embassies project
Greener than Thou? – Sweden goes Sustainable
Curated by Johan Berglund and Dean Pike of 42architects

Sweden has recently been celebrated for its environmental awareness in contemporary architecture.
Greener than Thou? aims to showcase some of the challenging and visionary ideas that have emerged
from Sweden in recent years.
This exhibition will explore brave attempts at re-defining what “green” architecture could be and whether
it is really contributing to the overall aim of reducing global warming. In recent debates, claims have been
made that all our current efforts towards reducing global warming are in vain; it is too late.
Therefore, in order to make a difference, a truly, fundamental shift in the way we live is needed.
As architects, how can we make this shift happen? Can we re-define the way buildings are conceived
and used? Can cities reduce their carbon footprint enough to make a difference in the long term? What are
the social and cultural implications of this change?
The Architects showcased in this exhibition have all set out to re-think the norm, and contributed to
the reputation of Sweden as being in the forefront of “green thinking”.

Greener than Thou? was commissioned by the Embassy of Sweden in London and is curated by Johan
Berglund and Dean Pike of 42architects. There will be seminars and workshops in conjunction with the exhibition.

The exhibition will be on display at Kinnarps showroom in Dryden Street, Covent Garden,
June - Aug 2008. For more information please contact:
Johanna Garpe, Counsellor for Cultural affairs, The Embassy of Sweden
johanna.garpe@foreign.ministry.se