Audi Urban Future Award, Venice Architecture Biennale, Award, Exhibition, Images, Design

Audi Urban Future Award, Venice Biennale 2010 : Architecture

Venice Biennale Audi Urban Future Award 2010

2 Sep 2010

Audi Urban Future Award 2010

The Audi Urban Future Award aims to establish a dialogue on the synergy of mobility, architecture and urban development by means of a tangible view into the future. The competition will take place every two years and for each award cycle, six internationally renowned architectural firms will be invited to develop their visions for the future of a designated theme.

Audi Urban Future Award – Building a Vision for 2030
Curated by Stylepark

Architects: J. MAYER H.
Exhibition Opening
Exhibition dates: 26 Aug – 26 Sep 2010
Opening hours: Daily from 10am to 6pm
Location: Scuola Grande della Misericordia, Cannaregio, 3599/A, 30124 Venice, Italy

Concept Statement – J. MAYER H. – A.WAY

Welcome to Pokeville! Be aware that you might only access with a blue sticker on your car or, just jump into one of our free auto-mobiles and lean back, enjoy the ride, only see what you want to see according to your profile, mood and status. This is your own personal city and let us take you on a tour of how it all began:

Once upon a time, around 1985, the world discovered the ozone hole and it changed the way we think about our future. From then on, consumption, production and mobility were at stake. With the introduction of digital technologies in the early 21^st century and electricity being the main source for energy supply our cities grew free of pollution and congestion; green, clean, quiet and efficient.

Visions of the future had always been a place of speculation for mobility. The 20^th century proposed playful and even sometimes naive visions of flying cars and underwater urban settings. Novel ways of flying around galaxies, excursing to the centre of the earth, diving into submarine worlds, travelling through time, jumping through universes, tele-transporting, injecting and voyaging through the blood stream of a human body did populate our visions of the future. Maybe in the long-term, we might experience these magical modes of transportation. Yet, the short-term future arrived invisible first.

Individual mobility then became strongly linked to the developments of digitally augmented urban spaces, automated driving and personalized data exchange between the human body and its environment. Traffic since then is a constant flow. No more need for parked vehicles. Pedestrian areas regained their lost space from cars. Repercussions had been seen on a social, economic and ecological level. Surveillance and assisting technologies transformed the city and its inhabitants into a flow of data, blurring the boundaries between body, car and architecture.

New forms of perception and performance arose from digital technologies. They allowed for each one of us to selectively allow or reject individual aspects of the city. The car transformed from being a viewing machine for manoeuvring in traffic towards a sensorial experience machine. Driving through the city now puts our senses and sensibilities into the foreground and allows us to interact with the urban context in completely new ways. We interact, we poke along temporary bonds and adjacencies, we float through the city and its auto-mobiles turned into social media. This instant personalization caters to your interest. You are on the move. You are here and away.

And there is always the probability of a collapse of all systems that might come as a surprise, that keeps us going, forces us to improvise, invent and move ahead. If at that point cities have proved once more to be flexible, adjustable, able to transform and survive, then we will live under a protecting ozone layer again, happily ever after, in Pokeville, a new place for individual and communal negotiations and exchange – and why not poke back? J

Credits

Concept: J. MAYER H.
Text: Jürgen Mayer H., Paul Angelier
Images: Jürgen Mayer H., Paul Angelier, Mehrdad Mashaie, Vanessa Enriquez, Thomas Gillioz
Animation: Paul Angelier, Thomas Gillioz
Sound: Paul Angelier
Graphic Design: Vanessa Enriquez

For further information please visit the Audi Urban Future Award website at www.audiurbanfutureaward.com/

Audi Urban Future Award Exhibition – Architects

Alison Brooks
BIG
Cloud 9
Diller Scofidio
J. Mayer H.
Standardarchitecture

photo © Adrian Welch

Audi Urban Future Award Exhibition Opening hours:
daily, 10am-6pm, closed on Tuesdays

Audi Urban Future Award Exhibition Location:
Scuola Grande della Misericordia, Cannaregio, 3599/A, 30124 Venice

Vaporetto Stop:
Ca D’Oro, Linea 1

In addition to technical solutions, the outcome should also incorporate particularly social, ecological and aesthetic aspects. Participating in the Audi Urban Future Award 2010 are Alison Brooks Architects, Bjarke Ingles Group, Cloud9, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, J. Mayer H. Architects and Standardarchitecture. The architects will present and discuss their initial findings.

The conference was chaired by Dr. Heinrich Wefing, architectural critic and journalist.

photos © Adrian Welch

The award ceremony and exhibition opening will take place on August 25, 2010 in parallel to the 12th Architecture Biennale in Venice. Information on the Audi Urban Future Award, the architects and Audi’s involvement can be found on the official homepage at www.audi-urban-future-award.com

Venice Biennale – Exhibitions, Designs, Images

photo © Adrian Welch