Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple, these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.
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UJ GSA Lecture Series: Bjarke Ingels Speaks in Johannesburg on Hedonistic Architecture and the Art of Giving Form
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- 11 September 2017
- Edwin Seda
- Editor's Choice , Opinion , archiDATUM Talks , Events , Articles Books & Magazines ,
Bjarke Ingels spoke last week to over 750 enthusiastic architecture lovers in Maboneng, Johannesburg, continuing on the Lecture series run by the Graduate School Of Architecture at University of Johannesburg.
Ingels, perhaps one of the most divergent critically acclaimed contemporary architects, sort to take the audience through a journey of his famous "process" of architecture, one now made known by the series of pivotal and clear sets of thumbnails that usually precede any architectural work from Bjarke Ingels Group.
Bjarke expounds on the notion that architecture is a process, and that the final product is all the more better from concept to use as a result of this process of continued build up, exploration, new knowledge and intricate dialogue. "Nothing is accidental and the final product is rarely the initial concept."
In this talk he expounded on the idea of hedonistic architecture, hedonistic being the ability for sustainable architecture to engage its users in the pursuit of pleasure, the sensually self-indulgent pieces of architecture that oppose the idea that for architecture to be sustainable someone has to suffer.
Instead he gave a terse but pithy analogy of a long hot shower from harvested water and solar heated systems as an alternative to short showers with conventional energy to save it. The intricate ideas explored here by Bjarke and his team is that design as an art of giving form to the unknown, should then embrace human needs, and indulge in the intricate functions that buildings and architecture as a whole is tasked to cater for.
"The Broken Record": Ingels continually explored similar themes, reinforcing these as the principles that have guided BIG for its lifetime. The idea that architectural thoughts and explorations are repetitive and recurrent and that one needs to continually develop and build upon manifests itself within this talk as a rallying call. Bjarke advocates for progressive dialogue with architecture and explained that ideas from the formative years have rooted within the culture of BIG and are continually developed and improved upon within every new scheme.
Ultimately the talk reconnoitered the seminal years of BIG and traveled through to the later years from social Danish architecture to his breakthrough in the commercial world architecture in China and the US, with the same principals forming a guard within which the recurrent ideas of hedonistic sustainability and process in architecture.
UJ GSA Lecture Series: David Adjaye on Unlearning Everything and Redoing it Again
David Adjaye explored a returning to the renaissance in African architecture yesterday at the University of Johannesburg Graduate School of Architecture in an engaging heart to heart with Lesley Lokko where he implored upon the need to radically explore architecture from always the new rather ...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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© Bjarke Ingels Speaks at MOAD Maboneng Johannesb...
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