Memories of last November at Barbican; a generous and inspiring talk by Beate Hølmebakk of the architecture practice Manthey Kula, in association with The Architecture Foundation. Two of their projects have been nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award: The Chamber Pålsbu hydro-electric power station in 2009, and The Akkarvik roadside restroom in 2011.
Above : Manthey Kula - Ode to Osaka, 2015 in relation to Sverre Fehn. Manthey Kula was commissioned by The National Museum of Architecture to develop a concept for some kind of realization of Sverre Fehn’s un-built competition proposal of a breathing space for the Osaka World Fair in 1970. The installation is the result of a long design process where questions concerning the solution of the built piece and it’s relationship to the initial competition entry had to be addressed and sorted out: The questions concerned technical issues, matters of form and material, geometry, size and siting, and eventually that of exhibition content. The work on show is not Sverre Fehn’s project for the Osaka World fair, but a contemporary installation based on, and honoring his idea. It is a structure consisting of an airlock building and an inflated, moving space. All details are developed for the installation to be dismounted and re-erected.
Text & Image on Ode to Osaka courtesy of Manthey Kula.
