Space for birth and senses
Light, smells, colours, temperature, textures, sounds… it must be overwhelming to leave a mother`s womb and get born into this world. How should that very first space we experience be like? Which material should it be made of, to make the new-born baby and the mother feel embraced, protected, curious? Our answer is a mud cave, rather a “belly” from the outside, warm light, an acoustic, that makes you want to sing, textures of refined lime Tadellakt and earthen plasters in shades of warm ochre and a funny dress of clapboards in various red tones (as our baby is a true Vorarlberger).
Its construction was possible thanks to more than 600 people from the region that supported the Crowdfunding campaign and many volunteers on site. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!!!
The initiation of this project came through the IG Birth Culture a-z, an interdisciplinary initiative of seven professional women among of them midwifes and professionals from the field of medicine, psychology, trauma therapy, architecture and culture, which joined forces in 2016 to create a holistic, strengthening and health-promoting birth culture in Vorarlberg go. The birth space is part of the 20 year anniversary exhibition around the topic of “birth” at the Hittisau Frauenmuseum Hittisau.
Team:
Anka Dür (Architect & Midwife i.a.), Anna Heringer (Architect), Martin Rauch (Artist), Sabrina Summer, (Designer), Brigitta Soraperra (Cultural worker), Stefania Pitscheider Soraperra (Director of Women's Museum Hittisau).
"When I gave birth to my daughter, I put a poster of the METI cave opposite to my bed in the hospital to be able to zoom myself in my mind into a space like that. Now it became true." Anna
After the "Monolith" in Omicron & the "Pepita" at the Venice Biennale by the ARGE Heringer & Rauch, a new sibling is due to be born in June: a prototype for a birth space in Voralberg, Austria.
