Proposal for the Romanian Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2016
Project team: Tincuta Heinzel, Ina German, Ioana R Popescu, Irina Deaconu, Ionuț Pătrașcu and Florin Pîndici.
Project description
The practice of architecture balances today, as noticed Paulo Baratta, president of Venice Biennale, between spectacular buildings – sign of power and of clients’ ambition – and the attempts of some to make present the questions society would like to address Architecture. Participatory design is seen nowadays as the guaranty of a democratic approach, sensitive to the needs of those for whom we are designing. Still, this approach does not find always unanimity, being considered by some as a form of derogation from design’s responsibility or as disguise for the lack of innovation behind the “political correctness”. By taking as starting point the Romanian architecture and design “Cahiers de Doléances”, as an example of a society about to “re-design” and to “re-draw” itself, the project “Designatures. Economies of Design, Politics of Participation” is a platform that questions the terms that allow or should allow architecture and design to contribute to what keeps together a society. Open to different voices implicated in the act of design, building or habitation, this platform examines the frameworks in which the participatory design takes place. It also invites to critical reflection and tries to redefine the foundations of practice models in the context of the financial crisis, globalisation and technical mutations.
Composed from an interactive installation that invites the public to reflect on the conditions of participation, round tables and a series of presentations of contemporary Romanian architecture projects, the project draws the place for a dialogue between the different actors of the act of designing, building and habitation.
The concept was nominalised for the critical essay contest of East Centric Architecture Triennial Bucharest in 2016.
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