May 21, 2019
The Bauhaus buildings in Dessau are prototypes of radical designs for the future. They were developed for real life and tested in it. In the festival ‘Architecture Radical’, the Bauhaus Dessau raises the question: to what extent is architectural radicalism still relevant today? What should be the basis for the design of new architectures that are capable of creating a worldwide impact, like the Bauhaus buildings? For three days, the Open Stage in the Dessau Bauhaus Museum and the Employment Office designed by Walter Gropius will become the festival headquarters and stand in as the authority on radically contemporary construction.
Employment Office by Walter Gropius
Alongside a public program, a hundred students of all design disciplines, who understand construction and architecture as a utopian task, are invited to the festival ‘Architecture Radical’ in Dessau. Attended by ten renowned architects—Anupama Kundoo, atelier le balto, Andrej Bernik, Sam Chermayeff, Frida Escobeda, Bruno Fioretti Marquez, Andrés Jaque, Jürgen Mayer H. and Philip Ursprung, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, and umschichten—the participants will be active in workshops with lectures and open space conferences, think and design, live and celebrate together in an atmosphere providing space for visions and utopias. At the end of the festival, the students enter into a “battle” against each other using the results obtained in the workshops.
Temporary installations designed by participating architects will be created and presented at the festival locations. These so-called “Signature Architectures” will be a reflection of the Bauhaus strategy elaborated by Josef Albers: “inventing construction and exploring attention”. The structural interventions will locate the festival in public space and will be symbolically auctioned without monetary exchange, according to the best ideas for re-use.
There will be a public opening of the festival on Friday, May 31st at the Employment Office and a series of walking tours throughout the weekend. A festive procession and book fair will take place on the final day, before the “ideas competition”.
Festival Info
BAUHAUS DESSAU
‘Architecture Radical’
Festival: May 31 – June 2, 2019
Public Opening: May 31, 2019; 8pm
Bauhaus Museum Dessau
Mies-van-der-Rohe-Platz 1, 06844 Dessau-Roßlau click here for map
Employment Office
August-Bebel-Platz 16, 06842 Dessau-Roßlau click here for map
