Supervisors:Luis Hilti, Matilde Igual Capdevila, Bianca Böckle
The conquest of a remote territory from agricultural expansion to the first adventurers, to infrastructural development, to tourism, is a compelling narrative to capture Liechtenstein. We are set to explore the history of remoteness in the country and the architectures it entails, through Walking, Writing and Building.
An arbitrary line drawn on a map will guide our research. We will attentively study everything we cross while following the line: the Rhine banks, the streets of Vaduz, the castle, the fields, the cow pastures, the power station, the tunnel, the farmer’s huts, the woods, the rocks, the cheese factory, the ski resort, the familiar and the unknown, the accessible and the remote.
Together, we will walk across Liechtenstein, from one border to the other, gathering impressions and carry out experiments. While strolling, we will collectively sketch ideas for in-situ wooden constructions. “To opt for minimal intervention is to guarantee that the significance of whatever already exists will be apprehended in full and accepted.”* These interventions will provide “the opportunity to emphasise nature’s free gifts of light - sunlight and moonlight, air, gravity, materials - natural and man-made resources.” **
Each student will carefully design, prototype and build onto the landscape one of the structures. The studio seminar will encourage an immersive scrutiny of the landscape through the practice of walking and a collaborative approach to design and construction.
“As a literary structure, the recounted walk encourages digression and association, in contrast to the stricter form of a discourse or the chronological progression of a biographical or historical narrative. This kind of unstructured, associative thinking is the kind most often connected to walking, and it suggests walking as not an analytical but an improvisational act.”***
The students are invited to take part in the exhibition taking place during the Biennale’s opening weekend in Venice. Studio Venice is part of Liechtenstein’s contribution to next year’s architecture Biennale in Venice. Students will contribute to the Exhibition in Venice and to the accompanying publication.
* Why is Landscape Beautiful?: The Science of Strollology. Lucius Burckhardt, 2015, Birkhäuser.
** Freespace as defined by next year’s Architecture Biennale curators Farrel and MacNamara, Grafton Architects, 2017.
*** Wanderlust: A History of Walking . Rebecca Solnit, 2001, Verso.
