Every so often, we architects / architecture-enthusiasts need something to remind us why we even sold our souls - and for some of us, even our (social) lives! - to the Underworld. (Literally, for times when we do things like design basement carparks.)
Here's one of those things - an exhibition (with a keynote lecture) on "New Building"! (Neues Bauen in German. The latter word rhymes with "Frauen", except it doesn't quite mean the same thing. ... Now, if there were a lecture on Neues Frauen.......)
It's based on a 1927 exhibition, International Plan and Model Exhibition of New Architecture, that placed architecture in an international context. That exhibition toured 17 European cities between 1928 and 1930 as a part of Die Wohnung (Habitation), a 1927 Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart, demonstrating the similarities and interdependence between the modern buildings from the US and Europe. (This paragraph adapted from publicity material)
Perhaps the throwback to 1920s architecture ideas - highly innovative at that point in time; still in vogue 80 years on (which can't be said of any 80-year-old Frauen!) would stir up enough nostalgia for us to get re-inspired should our motivation run dry, reliving the little wow moments amidst the snoozes in first-year architecture history courses.
On a side note, if the 1920s was "new", pre-WW2 "modern", post-WW2 (very loosely) "post-modern", the decades straddling the turn of the new millennium "contemporary", wouldn't we have run out of terms to define movements in art, architecture and philosophy say, 80 years downstream?
Anyhow, the exhibition runs from today til 6 January, with a keynote lecture this evening! ...
"Neues Bauen. What was so new about it in 1927?"
By Professor Karin Kirsch
Moderated by Dr Erwin Viray
7 to 830pm
Gallery Theatre, National Museum of Singapore
Free admission
In conjunction with the Neues Bauen (New Architecture) exhibition, now til 6 Jan 2008; 10am to 9pm
(Image taken from the National Museum of Singapore website, hence the funny tags.)
Please see http://www.nationalmuseum.sg/ for further details.
