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Conditions - Venice Biennale Exhibition
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To all too many people, visiting the Greenlandic Icefjord is a never-in-a-lifetime experience. Although this extraordinary place is not only breathtaking, but of vital importance to the existence of our planet, its remote location 250 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle marques it a destination for the selected few. Nevertheless, the rapid withdrawal of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is a collective matter of concern, why we wanted to bring the harsh but beautiful, and historic yet constantly changing conditions of this sensitive landscape to mind of all people visiting the Biennale Architettura 2018.
Read more ↓Extreme cold, wind, snow and ice are normal features of daily life in the Arctic. If not prepared, existence is harsh. These extremes are what we are faced with when working on the upcoming Icefjord Centre in Greenland. When invited for the Biennale Architettura 2018 in Venice we wanted to convey these extreme CONDITIONS rather than the project itself. Not with facts but with an immersive, artistic interpretation of the Artic conditions surrounding the Icefjord Center and characterizing this unique place. These are the conditions under which we work, they define and inform buildings, and remind us of the great power of nature.
“The theme of the 16th International Architecture Exhibition was FREESPACE, and our interpretation was concerned with the creation of an infinite space, which the surroundings of the future Icefjord Centre very much exemplify. The understanding of architecture is a 1:1 experience – here more than anywhere else”, Dorte Mandrup elaborates.
Our exhibit centers around the mind-blowing scale and properties of the arctic landscape. The installation features an abstract 1:12 model of the Icefjord Centre surrounded by an immersive light and sound scape allowing visitors to experience the unique natural phenomena and infinity of the Icefjord Center site at close range.
The curators, Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, argue for their choice of Dorte Mandrup:
“The historic significance of the location where “the Inuit people and Europeans (Norse) met”, combined with the making of a habitable place for social interaction within the “superpower of nature” has produced a project robust enough to sit lightly on the earth and to exert a singularly poetic presence.”
A special thanks for their support to Realdania, Knud Højgaards Fond, Dreyers Fond, Statens Kunstfond and Nationalbankens Jubilæumsfond.
