[ UNStudio ] The Changing Room

UNStudio will create an installation called The Changing Room at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens in September.

The installation will be part of the main biennale exhibition curated by Aaron Betsky and called ‘Out there: architecture beyond building’.

The Venice Architecture Biennale runs from 14 September - 23 November.

The following information is from UNStudio:

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UNStudio – The Changing Room, Venice Biennale of Architecture 2008

For this year’s international architecture biennale in Venice UNStudio has produced ‘The Changing Room’ as part of the exhibition ‘out there: architecture beyond building’ curated by Aaron Betsky.

The UNStudio installation in the Arsenale explores the transformative potential of the material world. Just like clothes designers, architects offer alternate looks and identities, age and income-appropriate shells. These constructions consist of a miscellaneous package of endogenous and exogenous values; things and ideas that inherently belong to architecture and its traditions, and things and ideas that do not, but that nevertheless profoundly influence architecture.

How to deal with this? Can architecture still have autonomy? According to UNStudio the lesson is to ‘switch it on, switch it off’… to find autonomy in brief moments of liberation.

The installation structure shows an architecture that is as supple as textile, in which floors, walls and ceilings flow into each other. On the inside, the visitor encounters a kaleidoscopic world of people posing, inviting voyeurism, and seeking transformation in their own conceptualizations of the changing room.

Credits:
UNStudio, The changing room – couture of architecture

UNStudio:
Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos with Christian Veddeler and Hans-Peter Nuenning, Steffen Riegas

Light design with:
meso digital interiors, Frankfurt

Engineering and building:
p&p gmbh, Fuerth/Odenwald

Subsidized by:
The Netherlands Architecture Fund, Rotterdam
The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture, Amsterdam

Sponsored by:
Arup, Amsterdam
Caparol GmbH, Ober-Ramstadt
G&S, Amsterdam
Pieters Bouwtechniek, Amsterdam
P&P GmbH, Fürth/ Odenwald
Rendertaxi, Aachen
Resopal GmbH, Gross-Umstadt
Sorba, Winterswijk