Getting Things Done:
Evolution of the Built Environment in Vorarlberg
A critical look at the architectural landscape in Vorarlberg creates the necessary distance to make it possible to discern the transregional significance in the radical, yet sensitive and carefully considered approach to architecture, design, and building culture.
vai Vorarlberger Architektur Institut, Dornbirn, Austria
7.3.–5.4.2014
Exploring the dynamic tension between the global and the local, curator Wolfgang Fiel presents specific aspects of the historical evolution of building culture in Vorarlberg. For it is only by looking for the general in the specific that the particularity of a local phenomenon can sustain a critical discourse that has transregional relevance. A key criterion for selecting the projects is that they address themes that are globally pertinent: Rethinking Nature, Objects of Desire, Up-and-Coming, Smart Living and Working, Art and Building. This has resulted in an exhibition that challenges clichés, allows for plurality, and reflects on the importance of controversy in generating innovation.
vai Vorarlberger Architektur Institut, Dornbirn, Austria
7.3.–5.4.2014
Getting Things Done gives palpable expression to the processes at work in the synergies between different actors in society. The title, content and design of the exhibition make reference to the lively discourse associated with architecture. Relying on context rather than on paradigmatic individual buildings, the exhibition presents a cross-sectional view of the evolution of building culture since the late 1950s: a comprehensive selection of typological variants, of functional and formal modes of expression, of singular, collective, and temporary forms of living and working, of private and public construction projects.
vai Vorarlberger Architektur Institut, Dornbirn, Austria
7.3.–5.4.2014
As a pooled resource of know-how and expertise, building culture comes out of practical experience and the direct process of doing. A series of interviews with architects, commissioning clients, artisans, and creative artists, who have contributed to the development of Vorarlberg's building culture in very different ways, provides a historical outline of the origins and evolution of building culture in the state. Free-flowing stories and uncut interviews generate a living archive that illustrates how high-quality architecture is produced and the (historical) conditions that govern its creation.
vai Vorarlberger Architektur Institut, Dornbirn, Austria
7.3.–5.4.2014
The act of critically interrogating a local phenomenon makes it possible not only to review Vorarlberg's architectural history from a contemporary, nuanced perspective but also to make productive connections to international discourses. For what at first sight looks like a contradiction is, upon closer inspection, what makes Vorarlberg's architecture so special. It is precisely because of its contextual anchoring that this development has the potential to provide an answer to the question of how far globalization can be reconciled with local challenges without being accused of staid regionalism or traditionalism.
