The Postponed Meeting of Neufert, Tessenow and Buster Keaton.
Situationism 2003.
This project formed the core of our winning Europan 7 competition entry.
The postponed meeting of Neufert, Tessenow and Buster
Keaton. Situationism 2003 integrates a conceptual statement
with an active architectural proposal, its key aim being to
generate architecture through social practice. It provides
a critique of the architectural process of creating space
for living by “boxing” a limited set of predefined
activities, arguing that such practice omits less normative
activities and excludes the occupier from the “space-making
act”, and so restricts the scope to explore changing living
conditions that can no longer be so rigidly defined. Based
on observations of individual habits and passions,
fictional scenarios were formulated comprising of
unorthodox combinations of everyday activities, ranging
from gardening to DIY. These scenarios were translated into
spatial elements, creating a map or “carpet” of
opportunities where elements could be selected and
organised to create different spatial environments. The
project is both a generic architectural statement and an
active proposition for a different way of creating space
that goes beyond conventional categories. It is based on
the conviction that architecture can and should derive from
situations that are grounded in the ordinariness of
everyday life while extending the experiences into
unfamiliar territories and opening up new dimensions
The project starts out by staging an imaginary meeting
between Ernst Neufert, Heinrich Tessenow and Buster Keaton,
a meeting, which we found, was postponed for too long.
Ernst Neufert contributes the obsession to monitor and
survey minute details of everyday life, Tessenow offers the
serious engagement and close-up look into the world of the
single detached house and all its minute details and Buster
Keaton is the necessary personality to stir up the
‘bureaucratic order’ of the all too settled world.
Situationism 2003 is what they came up with. Neufert,
Tessenow and Keaton have agreed to meet up on a weekend in
Graz. Neufert and Tessenow are already sitting together on
a wine-terrace when Buster Keaton arrives carrying boxes
and images of his ‘One week’ house, a portable DIY house
that can be put together in one week. It was his wedding
present from a supposed friend. But, this supposed friend
was also his love rival and he had therefore renumbered the
crates containing the house parts. This is why Buster ends
up with this bizarrely composed house. However, Buster has
discovered that it offers completely new possibilities to
inhabit space and therefore advocates it to Neufert and
Tessenow. After a glass or two they are carried away by
these unforeseen opportunities. In a spark of thought
Neufert went off and finally developed spatial elements
that are inspired by the practicalities of life, but are no
longer confined to a codified and restricted social and
spatial order that is still somewhat rooted in his 1936
first edition of Architect’s data. Also, the setting of
bringing those spaces together is no longer guided by
traditional rules, but has evolved to a ‘game’, which the
inhabitants can ‘play’. Tessenow came up with the idea of
transforming the single detached house by blowing it up by
200 %, creating a detached house that has left the idea of
single households. He has also disposed of the privately
owned territory around the house. Instead, the houses sit
on an open meadow, as the common ground, and the private
garden has shrunk to mini-outdoor zones that can be
attached to the house. Tessenow has also departed from the
conviction that the house needs to have a predefined
setting and he has subsequently transformed the house into
a raw material that can be DIYed with. After further
drinks they got completely carried away and started to
assemble Neufert’s new elements and began to cut elements
out of Tessenow’s raw house, forming new life settings.
After some time Neufert called for some order and so they
started testing various possibilities and inventing rules
for necessary limits to the game in order to ensure that
none of the participants would disturb the inventions of
the other. It was a joyful evening.
They are actually still at it as we speak...
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