| Modern Iranian Architecture | Der Iran, mit über 80 Millionen Einwohnern und seiner Jahrtausende alten Geschichte ist heute, mehr denn je, ein Schauplatz gewaltiger kultureller und politischer Spannungen und Veränderungen. Es handelt sich, gesellschaftspolitisch betrachtet, um ein ausgeprägtes Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart, zwischen tradiertem Erbe und modernen, zeitgemäßen Aufgabenstellungen, die es zu bewältigen gilt. Die aktuelle Architekturszene des Irans entwickelte sich seit der islamischen Revolution im Jahre 1979, aufbauend auf konträren Theorieansätzen, in pluralistischer Weise und vermag interessante internationale Entwicklungstendenzen vorzuweisen. Vor allem im letzten Jahrzehnt wurde im Iran beachtlich viel gebaut, sodass der Iran von internationaler Sicht auf eine pulsierende, lebendige Architekturszene verweisen kann. Der Verleih des „Agha khan Award“ für Architektur im Jahr 2016 an eine junge, iranische Architektin, ist ebenfalls eine Bestätigung für kreative Projekte im Iran.
| | 05/2018 | Austria | Vienna-TU Wien | |
| CONTEMPORARY MOSQUE ARCHITECTURE | philomena+ presents outstanding examples of contemporary mosques from Europe, which were discussed in the course “Contemporary Sacred Architecture of Islam” at the Vienna University of Technology in the research area “History of Architecture and Building Archaeology”. The space, architecture and construction of historical mosques were examined and the changes in use and benefits of newer mosques were researched.
What could a mosque look like in the age of globalization? This is a question that gained new importance at the international level due to the growing labor and refugee migration from Islamic countries to Western and Central Europe.
Here, the visibility of Islam in public space, especially in the form of representative mosques, is associated with social and political conflicts. Most of the mosques that have been designed and often built in recent years have provoked fierce discussion and rejection despite decades of cultural diversity. One effect of this controversy is that the critical question as to whether prayer houses in today’s world really need to have the traditional building elements is raised. Specifically, the dome and the minaret and their necessity for functionality and to be perceived by the religious community as a dignified establishment – because it is precisely these that are reacted to sensitively. philomena+ asks whether architects can contribute to defusing emerging conflicts with creative, contemporary solutions. | | 01/2020 | Austria | Vienna | |
| EXTENSION Blurred lines between art and architecture | “When you stand in spaces, you stand in what is drawn; when you look at drawings, you look at created space.” To this day the boundaries between art and architecture have been long disputed. While renowned architects such as Adolf Loos comments in one of his writings that “architecture is not art”, other architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright confront themselves and define “architecture as the mother of art”. Together with the architect Baharak Keshani (Tehran/Iran) and the artists Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler (Vienna/Austria), we too enter this discourse and test interfaces: When does the architectural sketch become an artistic drawing – the model becomes a sculpture? Is it “parameters” such as time, abstraction, feasibility that define boundaries or is it simply personal interpretation? | | 11/2022 | Austria | Vienna | |
| IMPROVISATION WITH LINES | These works reflect the artistic spirit of an architect who is not always able to find a suitable canvas for his pictorial creations solely through the design of the architectural space. They are the expression of ideas that were often completely improvised in the artist’s mind and subsequently put on paper using a fountain pen. The concept of these works is based, on the one hand, on capturing the composing of form and, on the other hand, on the optical perception of space with regard to visual aspects. These drawings are the result of a search for complex structures created through lines and aim to deliver a new representation of a three-dimensional Form-Space on a two-dimensional image area. | | 11/2018 | Austria | Vienna | |
| MODERNITIES OUT OF PLACE | supporting emerging architects in Libya, Morocco, and Austria with critical tools, mentorship, and global outreach. By linking the south (Morocco and Libya) to the north (Austria) The Placeless Academy establishes an alternative educational and critical environment to exchange knowledge and share learning, thus overcomes didactic and rigid traditional academic systems. The project consisted of a 3 months digital workshop that hosted several talks by international experts in the field such as Prof. Caroline Jäger-Klein, Assoc. Prof. Cruz Garcia, Arch. Hakim Benchekroun, Arch. Imad Dahmani, Arch. Amalie Elfalah, and Dr. Oliver Sukrow. Over the period of the workshop the 13 participants produced critical research and speculative designs for the chosen sites in Casablanca, Benghazi, and Vienna, which will be on view in the exhibition MODERNITIES OUT OF PLACE. Each group focused on certain sub-theme to study and generate critical and visual knowledge: Casablanca, Morocco: Inhabiting the Void. In the focus of the analysis was the architectural structure of the old poultry market in the Hay Mohammadi district, which was designed by Auguste Perret and is today abandoned. The site’s investigation raises several questions: What hidden characteristics can we find beneath the apparent banality of this building? What latent worlds are waiting to be revealed and discovered inside this empty shell? What this skeleton can inform us about the evolution of concrete? And What role can this building play in activating the urban area of Hay Mohammadi? How can we analyze the structure’s architectural characteristics, its (dis)connection to Hay Mohammadi urban area, metaphorical and (un)written stories in order to create new visual representations of the building? Benghazi, Libya: Tactics of Reconstruction in Omar Al Mukhtar Street. Being part of downtown Benghazi, the street first built by the Italian colonial power and today carrying the name of the leader of the resistance movement, is a cultural space that persistently lived through colonization, WW2 bombing and the recent civil war, with massive destruction. In 2023 the street was subject to an erasure project by the government, neglecting problematic Imperialist and colonial histories and magnified gaps in research and archives. How can we re-think this street as a generative and critical archive? How can we decolonize the theoretical and built production of the Italian colonial legacy and redefine the concept of modernism in Libya? How can we generate a “counter” process of heritage making, through documentation, analysis, and design? Vienna, Austria: Reconnecting with the City. The group focused on analyzing the modern social ideas in the design of the Steinhof site that was considered for curing the mentally ill patients, and providing creative solutions to re-conceptualize and re-use the site as a healing landscape. When the ‘Lower Austrian Provincial Institution for the Care and Cure of the Mentally Ill and for Nervous Disorders at Steinhof’ first opened its doors to psychiatric patients in 1907, the site was celebrated as the world’s largest and most beautiful asylum to date. The Psychiatric Hospital at Steinhof was intended to evoke comparisons with a self-contained rural colony and directly responded to anti-psychiatric that accused asylums of warehousing patients like prisoners. So did the Steinhof’s design really fostered a utopian idea of an asylum that brought together psychiatry and modern architecture | | 09/2023 | Austria | Vienna | |
| STAYING HOME,BUT HOW ? | In the context of the COVID-19 virus, similar measures have been implemented worldwide to prevent the further spread of the virus. It is a far-reaching crisis which also heavily impacts our living spaces and, as a consequence, alters our perception or rather our needs and requirements for what we consider “home”. There is a sudden change in significance and value of space and its qualities. The function of spatial mobility, natural daylight, tranquillity, a balcony or a terrace, a kitchen, but also the layout of (outdoor) spaces acquires a new meaning. How are we going to approach it? The exhibition “Staying Home, But How?” addresses the question of what or rather how we can learn from the COVID-19 crisis, especially in terms of architecture. A glance at architectural history shows that epidemics, crises and catastrophes have had an impact on urban planning and architecture time and time again. Is this to be expected from the COVID-19 pandemic as well? How helpful and important would a global exchange to find innovative solutions to a worldwide problem be at this very specific time? Following recent experiences, what does the population wish for the architectural future? In all these complex decisions, the question must be asked, what role politics, architects and occupants have to take on. philomena+ has chosen Vienna, in the centre of Europe, and Isfahan, in West Asia – with both cities’ historical city centres inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List – as representative places for the research and exchange for this exhibition, which will travel from Vienna to Isfahan. The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with further contributions from Ian Banerjee, Negar Hakim, Barbara Holub/Paul Rajakovics, Mohamad Mohamadzadeh, PPAG architects, Ida Pirstinger, Peter Reischer, Robert Temel. | | 02/2021 | Austria | Vienna | |
| VISUAL CODES | With its new project „Visual Codes“, philomena+ presents sacred buildings in Diaspora while posing the question of whether religious freedom can be equated to architectural freedom. The visibility of representative buildings in host countries, especially within the 21st century, has often times led to social and political dispute. In particular over the recent past, churches in non-Christian countries, as well as mosques in western host countries triggered heated discussions, provoking discontent amongst the immigrant and local population. This exhibition aims to stimulate reflection on the possibilities of sacred architecture in Diaspora and its potential role as bearer of peace in social and political conflicts as well as potentially being a positive complementation to the cityscape. The centerpiece of the exhibition are two churches in Isfahan, one mosque in Vienna and the islamic Cultural Center in Graz. The city of Isfahan in Central Iran is home to 5000 Christians, albeit its population of 1.9 million. On the contrary, Vienna, with a similar total population, is home to 120.000 believing muslims, while Graz, with a much smaller population, counts approximately 20.000 believing muslims. In general the question is raised, if by comparing, communicating and exchanging knowledge our mutual understanding can be improved, which consequently will lead onto a better path? The photos of the exhibition, taken by various photographers, invite visitors to form an opinion on how the immigrant population envisions their religious and spiritual spaces, and also, why sacred architecture in Diaspora is particularly vulnerable to conflicts. | | 10/2021 | Austria | Vienna | |
