SLO ITA AUT

I B M K Volume 2

2009-04-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

Die nächste Veranstaltung findet am Montag, den 20. April, 20 Uhr statt: Martin Krammer (Innocad) trifft Hope of Glory. Ort: HoG, Belgiergasse 6, 8020 Graz.

Im Büro meines Kollegen / meiner Kollegin - die erste Ausgabe

2009-03-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

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First Part of SLO ITA AUT Conference (in Graz)

2009-01-18T02:50:00.000-08:00

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SLO ITA AUT - Trinationaler Architekturkongress in Graz / Triest / Ljubljana

2009-01-12T03:18:00.000-08:00

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Vorwärts mit den Beschlüssen der Generalversammlung 2008

2008-11-27T14:07:00.000-08:00

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New day, new exhibition

2008-09-21T10:00:00.000-07:00

We move on the next day to see the exhibition 'Heart of Gold' and to get a guided tour by Martin Krammer.

Martin Krammer speaking again

'Heart of Gold' introduces a young group of architects from Graz - Innocad - to Trieste. Innocad will also have a temporary office here.

'Heart of Gold' is also the name of the project being projected.

Dirty Franco serves his lobsters topless

2008-09-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Lobby in Via Francesco d'Assisi

The image above is to illustrate that the Italian society pays attention to the impression it gives to you - this may be misleading sometimes but it adds to the quality of everyday life. We found quite a few lobbies of condominiums that were carefully designed and very elegant.

Bread as served (thrown on the table) by Franco Sporco.

A shiny example of the opposite approach is Franco Sporco's restaurant that we visited this evening - he does not give a damn about the impression he gives to anybody and his restaurant is not very elegant.

Franco's selection of tools for the oncoming challenges

The natives call him 'dirty Franco' but nevertheless they seem to be very fond of his restaurant - apparently it is very hard to get in. Later in the evening Franco will eventually drop his shirt and start to sing.

Franco's enormous plates - at this point you will forgive him any flaws concerning the treatment of guests.

Franco! Sporco!

A taste of Graz

2008-09-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

The culinary spectrum of southern Austria is quite different to mediterranean cuisine - especially in autumn when sweet chestnuts and new wine are a seasonal specialty. Martin Krammer and Julia Stangl-Tiefengraber brought the flavours of Styria to Trieste and they did so by serving different dishes, but all in the form of jellies that were arranged on a large table in Salone Gemma.

Claudio Farina, host

Interior of Salone Gemma

Martin Krammer arranging the jellies

Sauerkraut and bacon jelly

Alcoholic jelly

The crowd

Grid of jellies

Salone Gemma, not far from the park 'Muzio de Tommasini'

2008-09-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

We move on to Salone Gemma to see the happening "A Taste of Graz". Salone Gemma is an architectural practice /graphic design studio /exhibition space run by Claudio Farina and Kathrin Villwock.

Salone Gemma in Via Francesco d'Assisi, Trieste

Preparations for the happening

Architecture just opposite Salone Gemma

But now for something different...

2008-09-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

Just opposite our venue some Italians are playing cards

A typical tavern, just after its discovery by some of our fellows

This boy seems to mourn the death of Giuseppe Rota

"Make a big gift to politics so they have to love us"

2008-09-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

By Gernot Stangl

This is an abstract of the second part of the event that was held in the park. The panel discussion was hosted by Andreas Ruby.

Discussion panel

The common element of all the aforementioned activities is the celebration of the city. To celebrate something also implies a certain fear that you might lose it. So this determines our relationship to European cities.
Europe has a stagnation of urban growth, as opposed to Asia and the Third World, where new urban spaces are steadily emerging as virgin territories.
So the transformation of the European city lies in its redefinition.

Two approaches can drive this redefinition: a top-down strategy like a governmental initiative or the bottom-up approach that comes as a grass-roots movement. The latter is a sign of sustainable urban culture whereas the first may well result in an (undesired) 'bilbao effect'.

In real life both approaches interact and this relationship is a crucial point.

Andreas Ruby

The panel members agree that the Architektursommer Darmstadt is a good model and a direction one should take. It was possible to get cooperation in terms of sponsorship from private organizations but also from the government. The strategy was to to make a big gift to politics so they had to love the event and take initiative in the future. On the other hand a lot of people had to be activated to make this gift possible. For the first time many citizens heard about the quality of the architecture in Darmstadt.

The benefit is that this drives sustainable urban culture - even if politics may claim responsibility afterwards and say „we did it“.

A successful event like this also acts as a benchmark. hands-on experience is very useful as a reference point and opens the eyes of the participants. In the future public pressure may arise faster in order to push forward new projects.

We must not forget that if we focus on one single city we laeve out the - perhaps more important nowadays - focusing on networks of cities or regions.
So this is an antagonism and there may be a friction between the very local activities concerning the city and the more global activities that are necessary to enhance a regional network.

When it comes to fundraising experiences with policy makers show that projects can be regional but funding is only local.

So for example 'Projekt_A' was funded by the state of Austria and the country but not by the city of Graz. Graz does not see itself as a region.

We can only agree that local networking today is a phenomenon that causes unexpected side effects: old women from Graz get their hair done in Romania.
British buy houses in Slovenia because flying is so cheap.

A new term for this would be 'polycentric region'.

We see a shifting of centres today that also applies to Trieste, where the proximity to slovenia is becoming more important again.

Kerstin Schultz's presentation

2008-09-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

Darmstadt, Germany, is well-known for its heritage of Art Nouveau architecture. Today an astonishing number of 900 architectural practices work in the city but contemporary architecture seems to keep a low profile. The 'Architekursommer (summer of architecture) Darmstadt' was a festival that made the discipline more visible and did so with a minimum of funding and a maximum of activities. After one and a half years of preparation 90 events took place and this cost only 65.000 euros including a web site, a catalog and everything else.

Kerstin Schultz

Kerstin Schultz is chairman of the board and gave us an idea of the diversity of projects that were part of the architektursommer. Several institutions had been linked together and the result was a very dense range of events, one opening every second day. An urban mini golf competition, guerrilla tagging of public spaces or the use of towels as a means to conquer a slice of personal space were playful approaches. Ms. Schultz also had a few lessons for us concerning the interaction with politics and fund raising. (See next post)

Statement by Günter Koberg

2008-09-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

Günter Koberg

Graz, although a 'second city' has had a vibrant architectural scene since the 1960s that gained international attention. Due to a fruitful cooperation between both architects, the public and politics, especially in the 70s and 80s, the city is densely populated with notable architectural projects.Martin Krammer assists Günter Koberg

As a result of this and other activities Graz has been the European Capital of Culture in 2003. A certain negative effect occurred after this year when the city had less money to spend on anything related to culture and also seemed to lack energy to develop new visions.
Günter Koberg (Graz, Austria) is one of the coordinators of 'Projekt_A', a local grass-roots initiative that wants to put architecture and urbanism on the city's agenda again and hopes to do this in large scale. Graz shall be perceived as a 'capital of architecture' again (Koberg is sceptical about this term because it implies a claim of territory whereas peer-to-peer relationships are more desirable nowadays). 'Projekt_A' would ideally mount in a festival but through an extensive preliminary phase a close bond to the public of Graz (and therefore a sustainable initiative) shall be established.

Notes from Peter Dobrila

2008-09-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

Peter Dobrila from Maribor is member of the multimedia arts centre KIBLA (estd. 1996).

Peter Dobrila

Maribor was chosen as European Capital of Culture 2012 alongside with Guimarães.
In his keynote Peter Dobrila presents some of the initiatives that will be taken in Maribor. The urbanization of the world and the transformation to a cyberspace society will be topics that are anchored in the present and the future - but there is also a link to the past: the Museum of Socialism in Maribor will focus on the the socialist movement; hopefully devoid of "propaganda" but taking an approach that is known to Germans as 'Vergangenheitsbewältigung' or 'coming to terms with the past'

Statement by architect Dimitri Waltritsch

2008-09-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Arch. Dimitri Waltritsch (Trieste) states that his home town shows only little feeling for contemporary architecture. In a survey it turned out that the most beloved buildings were (the habsburg castle) Miramare and the football stadium. Contemporary architecture is perceived as of low quality and therefore local architects are more likely to build outside of town. Furthermore the cooperation between construction companies and architects is not very well developed.

Dimitri Waltritsch speaking

On the other hand initiative have been taken to improve the situation and to influence the mechanics that govern the city. An example is the symposium 'trieste idea' about the urban quality in Trieste.

Fabulous urbanites use the city as their playground

2008-09-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

This pavillion was a very nice venue as the weather did as a favor. As ist turned out during the event the adjacent areas maybe used as a playground for children from a neighbouring school. Fortunately our pavillion was equipped with a very good sound system (thanks to branding park)

Detail of the roof structure. The thing had mysterious hinges - perhaps it was convertible somehow.

Plasma screens by branding park, furniture on podium by bene (thanks to our sponsors)

The crowd starts to gather.

Only two stops to Trieste

2008-09-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

By Gernot Stangl

Styria has for a long time been a region at the very end of the western world. Although this dead-end-situation is gone for nearly 20 years it is still persistent in the local mind-set. Alas, it turns out that we are in a powerful region now and the linkage between cities like Graz, Ljubljana and Trieste has been reestablished. From a Graz perspective this also means going to the south where the climate is warmer and the temptations of mediterranean culture can be enjoyed.
The Zentralvereinigung der Architekten, Sektion Steiermark (ZV) has made a field trip to Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 2007 and hosted several events there in order to introduce Austrian architecture to Slovenia (and vice versa). This year the ZV moved to Trieste (Italy) to be host of a discussion and a gallery opening.

Every bus trip starts like this. In the foreground: Günter Koberg (far left), Maria Nievoll, Ulrike Bogensberger, Eugen Hein, Philipp Habsburg.
Günter Koberg deserves honorable mention becouse he forced the bus driver to stop for coffee twice.

This took place on Friday, Sep. 19th, 2008 and guests came from Darmstadt, Graz, Maribor and Trieste to have a day or two of discussion and celebration. At this point I wold like to emphasize that you can make it from Graz to Trieste in two and a half hours now (by car, thank you Hermi and Francesco) and therefore the Cafe degli Specchi (Trieste) is only as far away from Graz as the Cafe Tomaselli (Salzburg).

Structures along the highway in Slovenia.

Mutius Joseph Spiritus Ritter von Tommasini, or in Italian "Muzio de Tommasini" was a botanist and also mayor of Trieste. Our discussion took place in a park that was named after him. The gull seems to be a permanent feature of the portrait.

The first event of the day was a discussion forum that took place in a quiet park in the center of Trieste. I will write about this in the next post.

The park is full of statues of famous people who have a relationship to Trieste. So does James Joyce.

Joyce also has an animal for himself.