Uylenspiegel's workshop
Karolina Szabados
Lukacs Szederkényi
Anna Zsoldos
Architecture uncomfortable workshop (AUW) is a Budapest based architecture collective founded in 2012. In continuous search for situations where comfort meets real human needs, one of the biggest motivators for AUW is the process of understanding contemporary vernacular architecture. While taking part in the production of objects and furniture, their idea of design has changed a lot over the years. Currently AUW main interest lies in visual simplicity, specifically in daily tools and methods of construction, all of which manifests in the built objects. Through the creative process they search for the centering point, as the main aspect in their architectural design is not form or function, but the situation of balance between the people and their environment.
It isgetting fancy, that architect students try to do craftwork, but we do not really accept, if craftsmen try to do design.
How can we describe amateur process in the surrounding of capitalism?
As young architects, it was not possible to sustain ourselves solely through architectural planning. This was one of the reasons why we started producing functional objects–and continue to find this way of working important. This remains central to our practice, but despite our ongoing engagement with it, none of us have become carpenters or welders, but instead remained amateurs in each of these fields.
Our exhibition at Architektur im MAGAZIN in Vienna started out from this vantage point and posed questions in relation to it: What kind of specialist does being an architect make you and how does the architect connect to the craftsmen that construct the buildings he designs? What is his relationship with the actual physical work it takes to construct his building and how does he develop empathy towards these fields?
Within the exhibition space, we set up a fictional workshop for Thyll Uylenspigel. Once we found the novel from De Costel about Thyll Uylenspiegel. In this novel he is always looking at the craftsmen how they work but never chooses one, so as to preserve the most important character of his freedom. Within that workshop, we designed and built objects and furniture for architecture uncomfortable workshop’s Bajna-based restaurant. We worked in the space for three blocks of four consecutive days. Part of the final presentation were objects that relate both to the restaurant and our aforementioned approach to architecture. The character of the space will be in constant flux due to the changing materials both in position and form. The installation was brought to its final destination: the kitchen in Bajna. At the end of the working process, we organized a public dinner.