URSPRUNG Origine/Origin 1/4_Jean-Philippe Vassal. Public Lectures

Academy of Architecture

Date: 19 September 2024 / 18:30

Public Lectures 2024/25

URSPRUNG
Origine/Origin
Curated by Arrhov Frick, Stockholm

Jean- Philippe Vassal, Lacaton & Vassal
A place made of the existing
"explanations on the construction of a straw hut in Niger between the years 1980 and 1985, not far from the city of Niamey"

followed by a conversation with Muck Petzet

Thursday 19 September 2024 6.30pm
Teatro dell'architettura Mendrisio

Jean-Philippe Vassal (Casablanca, 1954), worked as urban planner in Niger from 1980 to 1985. In 1989 established with Anne Lacaton the Lacaton & Vassal office in Paris, an international practice that develops projects for public buildings, housing projects and urban planning.
All projects of the Paris based office are conceived with the aim of changing standards and are characterised by an important commitment to their sustainability and social impact; carefully elaborating on climate issues, reusing and transforming what already exists as an alternative to its demolition and paying great attention to budgets.

Jean-Philippe Vassal has taught at leading schools such as TU Berlin, Peter Behrens School of architecture, Düsseldorf, EPFL Lausanne (2010-11), the Versailles School of Architecture and at the University of Sydney. From 2012 to 2022 he has been full professor at the UDK Berlin.

Together with Anne Lacaton, Jean-Philippe Vassal has received a countless number of national and international architecture and sustainability related awards over the years.
In 2021 they received the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

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The title Ursprung will act as common ground for the Fall semester 2024 public talks of the Academy of Architecture. The four talks will take place as part of an inclusive and innovative experiment of active cultural mediation taking place from 19 September 2024 at the Teatro dell'architettura Mendrisio, where, in addition to these, integrated workshops with Academy students in dialogue with a series of invited personalities, i.e. authors and experts in various fields who will contribute to the realisation of an exhibition in the making, also curated by the Swedish architecture office Arrhov Frick.

Ursprung can be the source of a river, an architecture, a thought or fire, oxygen, the sun or the moment before.
Both in Swedish and German, the term tells about origin, whether it would be memories, an existing situation, a climatic condition or a circular system.

Ursprung is therefore understood as a platform open to topics that also aim at the recognition of quality to the aspect of the unfinished in architecture, as it opens up further questions to be explored.