Speaker Philip URSPRUNG

Date 15.11.2023

Time HKT 20:00

Location G/F, Atrium, LSK Architecture Building, CUHK

The topic of the Swiss Pavilion for this year’s Architecture Biennale in Venice is “Neighbours.” It refers to the spatial proximity of the Pavilion of Switzerland (Bruno Giacometti) and Venezuela (Carlos Scarpa), both built in the early 1950s. They share a wall. For the duration of the exhibition, this wall is opened. The iron gates closing the pavilion are removed. The combined ground plans of the two pavilions are depicted on a carpet. Rather than serving as a backdrop for architectural representation, the pavilion exhibits itself. Which are the specificities of an architecture exhibition? How can one convey a message if the average attention span of visitors is 30 seconds? Have exhibitions taken over the role of architecture theory?

Philip Ursprung is Professor of the History of Art and Architecture and formerly Dean of the Department of Architecture of ETH Zurich. He studied art history in Geneva, Vienna and Berlin and taught at UdK Berlin, Columbia University New York, the Barcelona Institute of Architecture and Cornell University. Books include Herzog & de Meuron: Natural History (editor, 2002), Allan Kaprow, Robert Smithson, and the Limits to Art (2013), and Gordon Matta-Clark: An Archival Sourcebook (co-editor, 2022). He was Principal Investigator at Future Cities Laboratory in Singapore. In 2023 he represents, together with Karin Sander, Switzerland at the Architecture Biennale Venice.

The lecture will be conducted in English. For non-CUHK participants, please register here.