Nach positiver Absolvierung der Lehrveranstaltung sind Studierende in der Lage...

COURSE OBJECTIVES 

The objective of this studio is to explore the concept of temporary architecture through the study and reinterpretation of barricades. By delving into the social, cultural, and political dimensions of barricades, students will develop design projects that not only respond to the immediate function of these structures but also contribute to the discourse on temporary and permanent interventions in the built environment.

 AN ARCHITECTURE OF EMANCIPATION

Introduction

The emergence of barricades has long been associated with moments of social unrest, often ephemeral yet powerful. In such contexts, barricades become symbols of resistance and ascension against political structures that are perceived as limiting or oppressive.

They generally take the form of heaps of fragments, bits of road piled up to form walls or small inhabited mounds. We can think, for example, of an installation by the artist Ahmet Ögüt, titled Bakunin’s Barricade. Bakunin was in fact an anarchist who had this idea of building barricades with works of art from the National Museum in Dresden in order to hold off the Prussian forces, in 1848, imagining that the soldiers wouldn’t dare to destroy them.

Barricades also filled the streets and boulevards of Paris, regularly for three centuries. In the mid-19th century, they even underwent intense development, with both the 1848 revolution and the Paris Commune of 1871. The revolutionary theorist Auguste Blanqui derived a number of principles of construction from them, published in his Instructions for an Armed Uprising. We noticed more or less the same barricades during the Vienna revolution of 1848.

But of course, barricades are not really buildings. Because even though barricades have undergone a few technical improvements in the course of history, it must be acknowledged that in most cases they remain temporary structures, but they nevertheless possess a few characteristics that could be found in buildings. And those are the figures that we propose to look at during this semester.

So, creating a genuine architecture born from barricades represents a singular ambition, a deep desire to transcend the initial ephemeral function of these structures and elevate them to the status of enduring works. This attempt involves defining and elaborating a new architectural grammar, complete with its own rules, aesthetics, and modes of composition.

Barricades, symbols of protest and resistance, are often perceived as temporary manifestations, erected in urgency and necessity. However, beneath this temporary appearance lies the potential to create a unique aesthetic, an architecture that transcends the limits of the present moment. It is within the dialectic between the ephemeral and the permanent that the vision of drawing a genuine architecture from barricades takes shape.

The site that is chosen to study the barricades is Mariahilferstrasse, leading from the Westbahnhof to the Museum Quarter. It is a 1.6-kilometer-long street that recently underwent an extensive public space redevelopment and is an important shopping area in the heart of Vienna.

By taking the architectural attributes of the barricades, we want to explore the transformation of these symbols of restriction into architectural projects, related to the existing social, economic and urban building conditions of the Mariahilfstrasse.

This sequence of barricade buildings placed along the Mariehilfstrasse will create a new specific urban condition where the public travels through a series of courtyards.

Our teaching philosophy is one of emancipation more than just transmission. The course demands from the students a sense of autonomy, a taste for experimentation and practical research in the fields of re-use of materials, found objects, subtle assemblages, and uncommon aesthetics.

Group work will be encouraged. Each project should be conceived by a small group of two to three students, collaborating in terms of thinking and making, allowing to create more detailed and ambitious projects.

APPROACH

The work will comprise the search of interesting objects and materials, the making of models, as well as the photography of their on-going transformation. The usual path of design will be inverted. Instead of drawing something that will never be built, you will build a real thing and then draw it. Drawing will come as an outcome, rather than as a prerequisite.

The studio will be conducted by Yves Moreau, Gilles Delalex and Quentin Moranne in weekly sessions, alternating between face-to-face and remote teaching.

Over the semester, French artist Pierre Leguillon will follow the student work to edit a specific Fanzine “School of Barricades” (blend of fan and magazine or -zine) that will be published for the final crit.

DELIVERABLES

analysis of barricades, drawings and models

analysis of the selected site along Mariahilfer Str. in Vienna, with a photographic reportage cataloguing all its specific attributes

moodboard

study models (ongoing through the whole semester), photographic archive of the process

plans, sections, elevations 1/100 - 1/200

detail plans, sections, elevations 1/20 - 1/50

1000 word text