Category: Faculty of Architecture

EKA Urban Studies MSc programme invites prospective masters students to join the programme’s Online Open House on Thursday, February 4, 2021 at 17:00 (GMT+2).

This will be a good opportunity to hear more about the programme, and to meet and ask questions directly from the department staff and current students:

• Professor Maroš Krivy (Head of the Urban Studies)
• Keiti Kljavin (Lecturer of Urban Studies)
• Mira Samonig (1st year MA student)
• Egemen Mercanlioglu (2nd year MA student)
• Kaija-Luisa Kurik (Associate Lecturer at Manchester School of Architecture)
• Leonard Ma (architect, runner of New Academy)

The open house event will be hosted online over Zoom.

If you would like to attend, please register online through the form below. A link to attend will be e-mailed shortly before the event begins.

REGISTER HERE

More information about the Urban Studies MSc programme: https://www.artun.ee/en/curricula/urban-studies/ and on Facebook page.

For the fourth year in a row the EKA Design Showcase will once again present the best cooperation projects of EKA’s students with companies and public sector organizations. An event introducing 16 innovative designs resulting from the cooperation projects will take place on January 14th.

The concepts, prototypes and ready-made solutions of innovative products and services created by students of the Faculty of Design and Architecture of EKA and Design & Technology Futures (TalTech and EKA joint curriculum) for companies and organizations such as PERH, Tuul, Naturewear, Harmet, moomoo, Kidsmed and others will be presented.

A total of 16 recent cooperation projects from medicine to modular houses and from footwear to bicycle clothing will be presented. The winner of the Viru x EKA Young Design Export Program prize will also be announced.

We look forward to hearing from all current and future cooperation partners of EKA and those interested in future design!

PROGRAMME

14.00 Opening remarks, Mart Kalm, Rector of EKA

14.05 Inspirational speaker – “Healthcare and design”, Siiri Heinaru, Research and Development Service Specialist, North Estonia Medical Centre.

14.15 – 15.45 Presentations of EKA collaboration projects, moderator Kristjan Mändmaa:

1. Naturewear OÜ and EKA accessory design – Product development and material research for brand KIRA;
2. Comodule OÜ and EKA product design with accessory design – During the hackathon, students created ideas for the electric scooter Tuul;
3. Disaintekstiil OÜ and EKA graphic design – Cycling clothing designs for the local cycling clothing brand moomoo;
4. Rasman OÜ, Harmet OÜ and EKA architecture and urban planning – 5) Modular houses: Etnika modular bungalow, modular Estonian country house and modular apartment building.
5. EKA interaction design – (Eng);
6. Interaction design of North Estonia Medical Centre and EKA – Social innovation design (Eng);
7. Kidsmed OÜ and EKA industrial product – Mesh technology based inhaler for children;
8. EKA Industrial Product, Henri-Kaarel Luht – The concept of reusable packaging.

15.45 – 15.50 Winner of Viru x EKA Young Design Export Program will be announced.

Kristel Sooaru, Head of Marketing and Communication at Viru Center, and Piret Puppart, Head of Fashion Design at EKA.

15.50 – 16.00 Break

16.00 – 17.10 Project presentations of the joint curriculum of EKA and TalTech Future of Design and Technology, moderator Martin Pärn:

1. North Estonia Medical Centre, Bariatrics
2. North Estonia Medical Centre, Orthopedics. KOOS – Arthritis Patient Support Network. KOOS is a network for arthritis patients that helps them explore the best strategies to treat their symptoms.
3. North Estonia Medical Centre, Pulmonology. BRIIS
4. North Estonia Medical Centre, Cardiology

17.10 – 17.20 Break

17.20 – 18.30 Project presentations of the joint curriculum of EKA and TalTech Future of Design and Technology, moderator Martin Pärn:

1. Unoloop: is a system that promotes package free consumption while supporting minimalist lifestyle. It helps to create a cleaner home and a cleaner planet.
2. Peridot: Companies provide not only necessities like toilet paper, but also coffee and food for their employees. Why not period products?
3. Teaching the habit of giving and receiving: Every pupil at school has insecurities, be it the loner or the popular one. We are proposing a game for schools that teaches kids to empower their individuality through doing good to others and receiving good done by others.
4. Team Hub: The nature of today’s office work is collaborative and based on shared open space principles. Team Hub will address how to support teamwork in the office, when employees require more flexibility and quicker adaptation to work flow in co-creating spaces.

The event will be funded by European Union Regional Fund

EKA Design Showcase 2021 on Facebook

“INSULA NUDUS: Paljassaare beyond interesting” is a public exhibition and a final grading of Estonian Academy of Arts Urban Studies Urbanisation studio, tutored by Andra Aaloe and Keiti Kljavin.

You are interesting, paljassaare is interesting, everything there is so interesting – it’s romantic, it’s so natural, it’s also hip and so unexplored and under cover; it takes you to the wild side, it takes you to a free and wild space; wow, it’s just so interesting! It’s full of opportunities and potential, so interesting!

“Interesting” seems to be a widely shared, dominating quality when it comes to the Paljassaare peninsula. Nature, wilderness, tranquility, decay, an escape – and all of this located in the capital city itself. But what actually constitutes this “interesting”? What lies beyond that?

On Saturday (12 Dec 2020) starting from 11am everyone is welcome to visit six different individual exhibits located all around the peninsula. You are welcome to explore them in your preferred order and with your individually chosen means of transport, but do mark that sites are open on different time slots (see the programme below).

All the sites are marked here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit….

Everyone is welcome to gather around the finissage-bonfire of the event at 4pm next to the  (at the meadow next to the tower with a bird mural on the facade: https://goo.gl/maps/cH6Ve3uZhxpU8uif9).

Be prepared for frosty temperatures, bring along some snacks, drinks and everything you need for a lengthy, wintery expedition in the bushes. Refreshments will also be served at some of the locations to keep you going, so don’t forget to bring a mug.

The mini-festival of Paljassaare is put together by Janosh Heydorn, Daria Khrystych, Dalma Pszota, Mira Samonig, Karlotta Sperling and Fernanda Torres.

And we thank you for the help along the way: Flo Kasearu, Abraham Kenny, Simona Medolago, Maros Krivy, Muhammad Ali Ul Hussnain, Lera Mikhailova, Andres Ojari, Panu Lehtovuori, Kille Alterman, Yuriy, Sergey, Natalia, Aleksey.

PROGRAMME

NB! Find the exact locations here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit….

11.00–13.00 (Paagi 8) // Right to the social retreat / participatory intervention by Daria Khrystych
What is social about social services and social housing? Official social welfare network is supposed to grant people with financial or social problems a way to still remain in society through assistance and support. In the perception of “functional” members of society, it is a fringe, an edge of the society in large that the “clients” of these facilities are pushed to. But what happens if we’d turn it over and look at the social house as a social retreat, something that we all need from time to time? The participatory intervention “Right to the social retreat” is an attempt to bring the edge (Paljassaare and its “social village”) to be the new and needed centre of the city by broadening the general perceptions of the “social services”.

11.30–13.00 (recycling yard area at Paljassaare tee 17) // “We should do something here!” Vol. 1 / audio adventure by Karlotta Sperling
Change is ahead and the future of Paljassaare seems to be mapped out and already fixed in a seemingly endless number of high-polished detail plans and real estate fantasies. But how does culture influence the anticipated change and what do I have to do with it? And finally, can a plan predict the future?

13.30–15.00 (entrance to the Paljassaare tee 40 area) // “We should do something here!” Vol. 2 / audio adventure by Karlotta Sperling
The series of “We should do something here” continues! Same topic, different location! Adventure is on!

12.00–14.00 (on top of Kopli hill at Maleva 4) // ARCO-BAY/ECO-SANTI: 50 years of eco-cities / audio walk by Fernanda Ayala Torres

Cities are not designed in coherence with nature, as potential places for human cohabitation with other organisms, because originally the city was to free humans from the contingency and wilderness of nature. But now, in the urbanised world and in the face of the pending climate crisis, the way we’re relegated to live in millions of little cubes separated only by roads and parking lots and cars makes us rethink the way we live and consume. From here the ambiguous and ambitious idea of an “eco-city” appears, this 50 years old concept, which aims to integrate the urban into ecology or/and vice versa. The audio walk “ARCO-BAY/ECO-SANTI: 50 years of eco-cities” is questioning the future paper-development of Ecobay in Paljassaare by drawing comparisons to another very different realisation of an eco-city: Arcosanti, an urban laboratory located in Arizona, US.

12.30–14.30 (Westernmost battery of Rannakaitsepatarei nr 12) // Out of control: Playing in the cabinet of curiosities of Paljassaare / installation by Dalma Pszota

The surrounding objects and our built environment define us just as much as the ideology we construct when trying to systematize the world. But who has the power and the privilege to decide our future? With the fragments of the Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene and the (Collage) City, this installation urges us to find a new order to things and reconfigure our role in an ever-accelerating neoliberal reality in the context of Paljassaare.

13.00–15.00 (Paljassaare linnuvaatlustorn/bird tower) // Watching birds from above / installation/intervention by Janosh Heydorn

Conservation areas such as the Paljassaare hoiuala are humanity’s desperate attempts to slow down the extermination of bird species, powered by the exploitation of natural resources and so-called planetary urbanisation. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s thoughts about natureculture, the installation in the bird watchtower questions the precarious understanding of nature and culture as separate entities. By extending bodily senses through the perspective of a drone the work invites us to reflect on our position on Earth somewhere between being an animal and a machine.

13.30–15.30 (ruin next to the wooden walk path) // The urban wild is—everywhere to be felt—nowhere to be noticed / performance and spatial experience by Mira Samonig
A continuously flowing magnitude; from departed to intended, from not-anymore to not-yet, from memory to anticipation, from past to future. The conceptualized circle of time drags one back and forth, to an extent that the actual present existence seems to fade away in space. This performance invites to question the matter of concrete materiality. The terrain vague of Paljassaare acts as an exploratory space to research theory with one’s own matter, the body.

Facebook event

Siim Tuksam, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning, will defend his thesis „Modulated Modularity – from mass customisation to custom mass production“ („Moduleeritud modulaarsus – masskohandamisest kohandatud masstootmiseni“) on the 22nd of December 2020 at 13.00 EET (UTC +2).

Audience is welcome to follow the live-stream on the link below: https://tv.artun.ee/doktoritoodekaitsmised

The defense will be held in English.

Supervisors: Dr. Renee Puusepp (Eesti Kunstiakadeemia) and Dr. Antoine Picon (Harvard University)

External reviewers: Andrew Witt (Harvard University) and Dr. John Harding (University of Reading)

Opponent: Andrew Witt

The digitalisation of the construction industry is in full swing. The infrastructure for the computer-aided fabrication of buildings is here, yet mass customisation by robotically manufactured infinitesimally variable components, as suggested by the early digital architects of the 1990s, is still not viable on an industrial scale. Architecture is seemingly forced to adapt to the industry rather than the other way round. How is it possible, within this context, to maintain the autonomy of the architectural discipline, facing the realities of extensive standardisation, automation, and artificial intelligence?

Digital architecture as a critical discourse was largely built upon Gilles Deleuze’s idea of folding, proposing a continuous formation of matter based on intensities. Folding in architecture resulted in an almost frictionless combination of topology and tectonics, where the whole consists of continuously variegated adaptive details. It is this continuous adaptation that is contested within the thesis in which modulation is proposed as an active intervention rather than frictionless optimisation – subverting the prevailing ideology from within by taking the system more seriously than the system takes itself, to paraphrase Slavoj Žižek.

Looking at modularity in architecture, starting with the professor of architecture at the École Polytechnique Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand and the analytical method at the beginning of the 19th century, and studying mid-twentieth century modular structures inspired by system theory, a lineage is traced towards the digitisation of architecture. The introduction of modularity into digital architecture produces an internal tension that constrains the formation of matter. In the 1960s the German architect Eckhard Schulze-Fielitz explored this type of emergent formation through the term Raumstruktur (structure of space), a macro material capable of modulation. By modulating the conditioning circumstances into a model of the Raumstruktur, a design space is created that governs formation – not a mould, but an emergent structure of space.

These internal tensions manifest themselves in the formal qualities of this macro material as an expression of the underlying structure. Through this expression, the communicative and political dimensions of modulation are explored in the thesis, suggesting an ornamental quality within the work and therefore a differentiation from mere construction.

The study is projective and reflective at the same time – experimental research by design that turnsinto both practice research and theoretical research. Through a series of projects in collaboration with the Estonian wooden house manufacturing industry, this exploration has evolved from looking at mimetic algorithms and variable tectonics towards a pre-rationalised design approach – modulated modularity.

Members of the Defence Council: Dr. Jüri Soolep, Dr. Anu Allas, Prof. Klaske Havik, Prof. Panu Lehtovuori, Dr. Suzie Attiwill, Prof. Toomas Tammis

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

Sille Pihlak, PhD student of the Estonian Academy of Arts, curriculum of Architecture and Urban Planning, will defend her thesis “Prototyping Protocols, Protocolling Prototypes: A Methodological Development of Somatic Modularity for Algorithmic Timber Architecture in Estonian Context” („Prototüüpides protokolle, protokollides prototüüpe: Somaatilise modulaarsuse metodoloogia kujunemine puitarhitektuuris“) on the 21st of December 2020 at 10.00 EET (UTC +2).

Audience is welcome to follow the live-stream on the link below: https://tv.artun.ee/doktoritoodekaitsmised

The defense will be held in English.

Supervisors: Dr. Jüri Kermik (Eesti Kunstiakadeemia) and Dr. Roland Snooks (RMIT University)

External reviewers: Prof. Michael U. Hensel (Vienna University of Technology) and Dr. Jan van Schaik (RMIT University)

Opponents: Prof. Michael U. Hensel and Dr. Jan van Schaik

This practice-based thesis posits the methodology of somatic modularity as a tool to manage complex, multilayered and highly collaborative workflow processes associated with algorithmic timber architecture. Based on computational modularity and variable resolutions, this methodology is systematized and articulated through the dynamic relationship between the detail and the whole, intending to implement that throughout the design process, including its output. The key objective of the proposed methodology is to identify design “protocols” (a set of design parameters) according to different levels of tectonic complexity introduced in the process of the “prototype” (the preliminary version ) development. The scope of resulting workflow models and their potential to adequately support new algorithmic design approaches is analysed specifically in Estonian context.

For nearly 90 years, the Estonian construction industry has been neither particularly sustainable nor automated. However, our recent work in the architectural practice PART indicates the possibility of positioning renewable materials again at the heart of the large-scale building economy with digital collaborative workflow between architects, engineers and fabricators. My dissertation addresses the question of how to robustly embed architects’ design intentions in the entire production chain of architecture from design to fabrication, combining bottom-up and top-down design workflows, which will allow more sustainable and design-led contemporary timber architecture to emerge.

I argue for a specific algorithmic workflow, with a central, agile, common platform that has proven to be an advantageous solution in pavilion scale construction, with design implications both in tectonics and for the way we work together. My dissertation maps the development of architectural practice PART, which collaborates closely with Estonian timber house manufacturers, and whose design research has developed from bespoke (2015-2017) and standardized design systems (2017-2018) towards methods of somatic modularity (a variable modular system) since 2018. In each of these periods of development I identify the negotiation between automated design protocols and tangible prototypes and show their potential for contributing to a more articulated, collaborative and material-driven architecture.

I conclude that the systematization of digital design techniques also responds to the changing position of the creative practitioner in relation to algorithmic workflow, and that the application of somatic modularity as a design methodology provides for a strategy to better facilitate design ideas in the rapidly-automating construction industry.

Members of the Defence Council: Dr. Jüri Soolep, Dr. Anu Allas, Prof. Klaske Havik, Prof. Panu Lehtovuori, Dr. Suzie Attiwill, Prof. Toomas Tammis

Please find the PhD thesis HERE

Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄
Juss Heinsalu

Al₂Si₂O₅(OH)₄ is a simplified formula representing the chemical composition of clay. This exhibit of the same name is a continuation to the exhibition “Surface View” in the monumental gallery of the Tartu Art House (June 2020). It gathers together a wide range of artistic applications of clay in ceramics, glass, printmaking and in new material combinations. Heinsalu deals with clay as a source, medium and environment. In his material-based research and creation practice, he looks at the properties of clay while combining them with mythological derivations, scientific hypotheses and speculative solutions. EKA Gallery displays prints made with clay pigments, fused clay-glass samples, ceramic elements, formed clay-skin from bioplastic and wool mixture, micro-macro scales of clay through video format and much more.

Heinsalu adds: “My studio practice merges materials with invented tools, mythological narratives and folklore with contemporary technology. I often lean on fiction to playfully observe and (re)define the surrounding world. In this exhibition, clay is simultaneously a base material, form, language, metaphor and a reflection.”

Juss Heinsalu studied ceramics at the Estonian Academy of Arts and received his MFA at NSCAD University in Nova Scotia, Canada. Heinsalu deals daily with material-based research and creation, and in Fall 2020 began additional studies in the field of interior architecture at EAA. Previously, he has actively participated in various projects and exhibitions across Europe and North America.

Thanks from the artist for the support of this exhibition and his practice: Estonian Artists’ Association, Arts Nova Scotia, Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the departments of Glass Art, Ceramics, and Jewellery and Blacksmithing at Estonian Academy of Arts, Printmaking department at NSCAD University, Valge Kuup, and artist’s family and friends.

______

Ceramic Dimension
10–28.11.2020
Lauri Kilusk, Martin Melioranski and Urmas Puhkan.

The international workshop-exhibit “Ceramic Dimension“ introduces the possibilities of clay 3D printing in EKA. The project is organized by Urmas Puhkan and Lauri Kilusk from the Department of Ceramics and Martin Melioranski from the Department of Architecture. Huge assistive support from Kaiko Kivi as a system architect and Madis Kaasik from Prototyping Lab.

During the period of almost five years, the professionals and students of different disciplines from EKA and elsewhere in the World, have been engaged in an experimental process, that has taken the knowledge and sensibility gathered through centuries of this specific materiality and combined it with current technological outputs, initiating novel outcomes from a well tested material.

The exhibit “Ceramic Dimension“ gives an overview of the wide spectrum of morphological and space-making topics led by design, art and architectural agendas, that have been brought to the physical environment by stratifying refined clay mass with digital tools and specially designed 3D printers and an advanced collaborative robot.

When compared to the now common plastic filament 3D printing, it brings forth contrasting results – clay is much more “alive”, even after going through the stages of digital-mechanical treatments. Clay, due to its substantiate internal properties, keeps on moving even after receiving its numerically driven exact shape. This in turn gives it a certain character, and avoids the easily attainable repetitive numbness and dryness when compared to regular digital prints from established industrial materials.

This has in some cases been integrated with properties of other materials in order to gain specific composite mixtures. Leftovers of Rockwool, waste paper, sand etc, has introduced a recycling and up-cycling perspective to the process, at the same time improving the printing properties of the base-material.

With our workshop-exhibit we wish to start a broader discussion on the possibilities of 3D clay printing. During this exhibition, the EKA Gallery will transform into a kind of laboratory, where new objects become alive during a continuous experiment. The viewer is expected to ask questions and express opinions, thereby becoming more akin to a participant in this process. We plan to make web-mediated meetings with several internationally recognized and established practitioners of this craft.

Next to the finished works shown and done prior to the opening, the exhibit will gain additional performative layers of integrating machinic intelligence to the joy of human discovery by making new results – showing both successes and mistakes.

Participants: Elize Hiiop, Madis Kaasik, Lauri Kilusk, Kaiko Kivi, Martin Melioranski, Urmas Puhkan Laura Põld, Oksana Teder, Katri Jürimäe, Sanna Lova, Jekaterina Burlakova, Aleksandra Kazanina, Kristel Ojasuu, Helena Tuudelepp.

An online seminar entitled ‘Integrated Design’ is being held from 13:00-15:30 on 16 June as part of WDBE 2020.

The World Summit on the Digital Built Environment or WDBE 2020, which is the third in the series, is being hosted this autumn in Tallinn and Helsinki. The topics to be covered at the summit will put participants on paths to the future and give them the chance to think big and dream up the world in which we will be living in 10-30 years’ time. A number of events will be taking place ahead of the summit, including the seminar being held on 16 June.

The online event, which will be taking place at the Estonian Academy of Arts (EAA), will showcase a variety of interdisciplinary practices as well as examples of cooperation between architects and engineers and of the relationships between design and the construction industry.

Andres Ojari, the dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the EAA, says that the ongoing health crisis has completely changed people’s working habits and the way they work with other people. “Remote work has become the new normal, with technology allowing us to exchange knowledge, experience, expert assessments and analyses in real time,” he said. “Instead of the linear, stage-by-stage way we’ve been organising our work to date, we’re working together on processes that are taking place in parallel. So you might find an engineer working out a construction solution before the plans for the building in question have been finalised, with the framework provided by the manufacturer being the starting point for spatial ideas. A well-planned and well-integrated design model allows you to see straight away the consequences of every line you draw on the construction, on its manufacturing, on energy efficiency and on everything else you can determine through calculations.”

Taking to the virtual stage at the seminar will be respected speakers from the fields of architecture, engineering and urban planning from both Estonia and abroad.

Programme

13:00 Introduction | Moderated by Jaan Saar (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications)
13:05 ‘The 7th Transformation. A new mandate for cities, a new model for developers’ | Damiano Cerrone (DEMOS Helsinki)
13:30 ‘New production lines for architecture: An integrated model for architecture and engineering in practice and academy’| Adam Orlinski (Bollinger und Grohmann Engineering), Sille Pihlak & Siim Tuksam  (EAA & PART)
14:15 ‘Digital tools and platform technologies for industrialised construction’ | Phil Langely (Bryden Wood) & Renee Puusepp  (Creatomus Solutions &  EAA)
15:00 ‘City and Data’ | Professor Thomas Auer  (TRANSSOLAR Energietechnik)
15:15-15:30 Questions & closing discussion involving all participants

The Tallinn programme of WDBE 2020 is being curated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications and the Estonian Digital Construction Cluster, of which the EAA is a member. The programme is being supported by Enterprise Estonia with financing from the European Regional Development Fund. The main organiser of WDBE 2020 is KiraHUB in Finland.

Register for the seminar at https://kirahub.org/en/wdbe2020/wdbe2020-integrated-design.

For further information please contact:

Andres Ojari
Dean of the Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts & Member of the Management Board of the Estonian Digital Construction Cluster
andres.ojari@artun.ee
Mobile: +372 50 99 350

Ingrid Piirsalu
Communications Manager for the Estonian Digital Construction Cluster
ingrid@digitaalehitus.ee
Mobile: +372 5646 4035

NB! The lecture is CANCELED!

HIMMELB(L)AU 68 Revisited: We will not allow Art to be exiled from Architecture. Open Lecture by Wolf D. Prix

Arriving to Tallinn on 12 March is the co-founder, Design Principal and CEO of Vienna-based international architecture practice COOP HIMMELB(L)AU Wolf D. Prix, according to whom COOP HIMMELB(L)AU does not so much as fight gravity with their buildings which often seem to float or sway, but rather tries to ignore gravity in the first place. Prix’s lecture is titled “HIMMELB(L)AU 68 Revisited. We will not allow Art to be exiled from Architecture” and is part of the Estonian Academy of Arts architecture open lecture series. All lectures are free and open for all.

Wolf D. Prix studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology, the Architectural Association of London as well as at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles. Amongst others, Wolf D. Prix is a member of the Österreichische Bundeskammer der Architekten und Ingenieurkonsulenten, the Bund Deutscher Architekten, Germany (BDA), the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Architectural Association Santa Clara, Cuba, and Fellow of the American Institute of Architecture (FAIA). Prix has received numerous award, including the Great Austrian State Award and the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art.

COOP HIMMELB(L)AU was founded in Vienna in 1968 and has since then been operating in the fields of art, architecture, urban planning, and design. Another branch of the firm was opened in Los Angeles in 1988. In numerous countries the firm has realized museums, concert halls, science and office buildings as well as residential buildings. Presently COOP HIMMELB(L)AU is working on various projects in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The company’s most well-known international projects include the Rooftop Remodeling Falkestraße attic conversion in Vienna, the multifunctional UFA Cinema Center in Dresden, the BMW Welt in Munich, the Akron Art Museum in Ohio, the Central Los Angeles Area High School #9 for the Visual and Performing Arts, the Busan Cinema Center in Korea and the Dalian International Conference Center in China and the House of Music in Aalborg, Denmark.

The Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali

www.avatudloengud.ee
www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info:
E-mail: arhitektuur@artun.ee
Tel. +372 642 0071

In Praise of Bad Architects: Open Lecture by Pippo Ciorra

The next lecturer of the Open Lecture Series this spring will be Rome-based architect, critic and professor Pippo Ciorra. Ciorra’s lecture will focus on the contribution given to architecture and especially to modern architecture by designers whose skill was not mainly focused in the exclusive relation with the drawing process and the construction expertise but more to be found in their attitude to conceptualize, politicize, push architecture towards new dimensions and new relations with society. Ciorra will be stepping on the stage of the main auditorium of the EKA building on the 5th of March at 6 pm.

Pippo Ciorra is since 2009 the senior curator for architecture at the MAXXI museum in Rome and longtime editor in chief of “Casabella”. Architect, critic and professor, member of the editorial board of “Casabella” from 1996 to 2012, he collaborates with journals, reviews and national press and is author of many essays and publications. In 2011 he has published an overview of the conditions of architecture in Italy, Senza architettura, le ragioni per una crisi (Laterza). Author of a number of books and, he’s published monographic studies on Ludovico Quaroni (Electa, 1989), Peter Eisenman (Electa, 1993), and then on museums, city, photography and contemporary Italian architecture. He teaches design and theory at SAAD (University of Camerino) and is the director of the international PhD program “Villard d’Honnecourt” (IUAV). He’s a member of CICA (International Committee of Architectural Critics), advisor for the award “Gold Medal of the Italian architecture”. He’s been chairing or participating to national and international design competitions. He has curated and designed exhibitions in Italy and abroad.

The Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali

www.avatudloengud.ee
www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info:
E-mail: arhitektuur@artun.ee
Tel. +372 642 0071

The War of the Ants: Architectures of the MTV Generation

The EKA Faculty of Architecture Open Lecture Series spring semester will kick off on Thursday 13 February with Stockholm-based architecture practice Secretary which consists of architects Karin Matz and Rutger Sjögrim and theorist/urban planner Helen Runting. In a present where architecture will have to do without stable categories, clear periodizations, and an indisputable sense of purpose, architects have to multi-task, operating across a range of different registers simultaneously. In their lecture in Tallinn, Secretary will use their own work with interior design, video and spatial installation, research and urban design in order to self-critically reflect on the obsessions, compulsions, ambitions, and failures of a generation of architects that came of age in a world on the cusp of digitalization. How could architectural design and theory help us to understand and visualize our data-drenched present? How could we cut through all the white noise?

Architecture practice Secretary is built on a shared interest in the capacity of architecture to facilitate a dignified life at the scale of the population. Secretary aims to produce buildings, exhibitions, research studies, and megastructures that give form to the late welfare state in the 21st century.

The Faculty of Architecture of the Estonian Academy of Arts has curated the Open Lectures on Architecture series since 2012 – each year, a dozen architects, urbanists, both practicing as well as academics, introduce their work and field of research to the audience in Tallinn. All lectures are in English, free and open to everyone.

The series is funded by the Estonian Cultural Endowment.

Curators: Sille Pihlak, Johan Tali

www.avatudloengud.ee
www.facebook.com/EKAarhitektuur/

More info:
E-mail: arhitektuur@artun.ee
Tel. +372 642 0071