15 Biennale di Venezia. The Palaver Tree
curator: studio razavi architecture
collaboration: youfeel.org
year: 2016
program: exhibition
floor area: 50m²
photography: patricia parinejad
sponsor: / Battaglia S.R.L (www.battagliacontract.com)
studio razavi architecture has been invited by the Global Art Affairs Foundation to exhibit at Time Space Existence, a collateral event of the 15th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
Peter Eisenman, Denise Scott Brown, Curtis Fentress, WOHA are amongst some of this year’s guests at Time Space Existence.
studio razavi architecture built a life size mock-up for a building structure currently under design for a London house. The installation introduces not only a layout for the exhibition but also a spatial experience for visitors as parabolic arches of varying height, create a series of vistas and paths to the works shown: a concrete townhouse in New York and a single family building in London.
The exhibition is titled The Palaver Tree as a reference to the ancestral African tradition of mediation, dialogue and decision making. An all-encompassing interaction process applied to architectural design and through which underlying emotions take center stage and help introduce a phenomenological bridge between « experts » and « non-experts ».
Work has been produced in collaboration with YouFeel.org, a not for profit organization which focuses on promoting new patterns of collaborative design in architecture and in the arts.
THE PALAVER TREE
Migration, physical or cultural, has come to define us all. In a global context of ever transforming processes, environments and economies, added layers of complexity force us to constantly adapt and seek new equilibrium.
Our primeval generational connections are diluted, at times lost as fewer and fewer people live where they were born. Grounding becomes central. Our cultural and ancestral markers face the evolution of a fast paced world, creating the need to seek refuge and find meaning within ourselves.
So that “battles are won” our claim is that people’s quality of life cannot affect the quality of the built environment, rather than the opposite. Frontal confrontation will not win this battle, bypassing challenges will. Perspectives are to be found, territories defined by shifting attention to our inner selves.
Let us offer a different relationship to architecture. Let us transition from the notion of inhabitant to in-habited where the end user is considered knowledgeable enough and the architect becomes a facilitator. Contributing to re-building a social link that relies on affect rather than effect.
Let us implement the ancestral rite of the Palaver Tree to bring about a cultural referent that captures our modern customs and our buried senses. An interface to architecture which fosters new conditions to build habitat by calling on our emotions.
The Palaver Tree is the creative methodology which leads to a new focal point, a place where stories and identities are transmitted, a place of exchange and wellness. A place of conversations that leads to criteria beyond esthetics, beyond building and energy codes. A collection of stories to be told, of feelings and senses to be shared and desires brought to the surface; materialized as built space. The Palaver Tree as catalyst for an architecture from within.
The two projects shown at the 2016 Biennale are the outcome of this research, Reported from the Frontline.
ABOUT STUDIO RAZAVI ARCHITECTURE
The studio introduces an approach to architectural practice determined by outlining existing relationships between technique and culture, free of stylistic limitations, dependent on context and pathos. Ultimately the belief that successful architecture materializes by integrating building technology not as performance but sensitivity.
The design methodology is one of mediation between architectural culture and the genealogy of space as experienced by each individual, a desire to materialize affective idiosyncrasies, a mental regionalism of sort.
A practice established in 2008 as the sum of past journeys. Having left Iran at an early age, Alireza Razavi studied architecture in Paris, Milan and Columbia University in New York. Before setting up his own offices in Paris and New York, he worked for Peter Eisenman, Agrest & Gandelsonas, Shigeru Ban in Tokyo, Francois de Menil and FTL Happold.
studio razavi currently focuses on housing, houses and interior design. Active projects are located in North & South America and Europe.
www.studiorazavi.com / info@studiorazavi.com
PALAZZO BEMBO
Riva del Carbon, N 4793, Venice (near the Rialto) will be open to the general public from May 28th to November 27th.
For more information on Global Art Affairs Foundation please visit www.globalartaffairs.org and www.palazzobembo.org
YOUFEEL.ORG
YouFeel.org est une organisation à but non lucratif visant à favoriser le recentrage du processus créatif autour du capital humain et de l’identité ethnique prise dans son mode trans-générationnel le plus large.
De même que le capital physique, chaque individu à la chance de posséder un capital humain fait de compétences, d’expériences et de savoirs. Il ne peut devenir la propriété d’un tiers, il est simplement mis à disposition par l’individu de manière temporaire, il implique l’individu tout entier dans une démarche d’investissement constante.
Lorsque l’on étend ce capital humain à une quatrième dimension qui est l’identité commune, que l’on peut approcher comme l’ensemble des faits et idées qui concourent à la formation d’un groupe, d’un peuple, et que l’on met en œuvre ce capital à travers un processus collectif, les barrières issues des systèmes endogènes sont repoussées et la création s’affranchit des limites. On sort de la technicité pour entrer dans le monde des émotions, du ressenti, du beau qui nous bouleverse intérieurement.
YouFeel.org a vocation à s’interroger sur l’évolution du processus créatif individuel vers un processus créatif collectif dont l’ambition est d’ouvrir et d’intégrer une sensibilité non-experte, d’intégrer l’éventail de ressentis parfois ancestraux, non quantifiés, non intellectualisés, non paramétrés.
Quoi de plus naturel pour YouFeel.org de s’intéresser au processus créatif architectural qui aboutit à l’un des plus grands actifs identitaire de l’humanité: notre lieu de vie. Soutenir studio razavi architecture dans sa quête d’inclusion de l’humain dans sa démarche quotidienne pour jouer un rôle de passeur de bien être plutôt que de sachant ne pouvait que nous passionner et nous nourrir pour continuer notre propre chemin.
