Salon Talks _ On the Everyday
The S AM’s winter exhibition, «Make Do With Now: New Directions in Japanese Architecture» (12 November 2022 – 12 March 2023) shines a light on a younger, lesser-known generation of Japanese architects and urban practitioners who are developing a range of critical, ecological, and social practices that creatively «make do» – with limited resources, with found materials, with existing spaces – while seeking appropriate responses to the urgent problems of the present. To coincide with the exhibition, the S AM is collaborating with LINA, the European architecture platform, to organize a series of informal talk events bringing protagonists from this burgeoning scene into dialogue with practitioners from the European context.
Each event, which will take place in the workspace of a young practice based in Basel, brings together three practitioners working on similar themes in different locations: one from Japan, one the EU, and one from Switzerland. Short presentations of their work will be followed by an open-format discussion in which members of the audience are actively encouraged to take part.
Ideally, this event will lead to longer lasting contacts and new alliances among a transnational and -regional generation of practitioners working with the built environment today. At the same time, the LINA Fellows will gain new knowledge about the specific conditions and concerns driving building culture and practice in other contexts, hopefully leading to a more nuanced and multifaceted approach in their own work.
Salon Talk 1: «On the Everyday», 8 December 2022
The first event in this series took place on 8 December 2022, focusing on the topic of the «Everyday». Against a backdrop of increasingly globalized and homogenized building activity, the seemingly banal landscapes of the everyday have taken on a new significance as inspiration and field of intervention for a design practice that is based in a careful engagement with specific places and the people that live in them. How does one interpret and evaluate the unspectacular scenery and situations of the everyday, and what tools are available to facilitate this process? What does it mean to design with the everyday life of a space beyond its completion in mind? And how might the everyday inspire a new form of aesthetics and ethics in architecture?
The discussion event brought together an international group of three young practitioners working on the potentials of everyday landscapes in their architectural and artistic practices. The unique post-industrial location in Basel’s port (which is also used as an office for one of the participating architects) became the setting for a lively discussion on the power of the LINA Fellow Jonathan Steiger, in particular, brought a fresh perspective as a visual artist to the otherwise architecturally inclined discussion, fostering a meaningful exchange.
Participants:
• Rui Itasaka, architect, RUI Architects, Tokyo
• Kai Zipse and Christian Weyell, architects, Weyell Zipse Architekten, Basel
• Jonathan Steiger, artist, Amsterdam (LINA Fellow)
