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negotiating ungers. the aesthetics of sustainability

an exhibition at civa with students from ku  leuven,  faculty  of  architecture (in collaboration with cornelia  escher)
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1 – the exhibition synthesizes creative and communicative work and analytical research.

2 – the representation of the investigation in a spatial and aesthetic medium. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

4 – solar house drawings (o. m. ungers), stone house, glass house, frame house, green house. the solar house consists of four layers, defined each by a different materiality. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

4 – the installations and presentations constitute a position on the aesthetics of sustainability. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

5 – scales of sustainability in the work of ungers (lisbeth decloedt), demonstrates how greenery is employed as a morphological design element in ungers’ projects. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

6 – exploding the drawing, making sustainability material (tom schoonjans), focuses on the interplay of form and material in ungers design. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

7 – narratives of climatic behavior: imagined experiences (alessandro cugola, juliane seehawer, fien werckx), the two videos underline the importance of bodily perceptions for the aesthetics of sustainability in the solar house. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

8 – oswald mathias ungers, 5 energie häuser (5 energy houses), 1980—a visual extract. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

9 – conversation between two without one (natasha kurmashova), focuses on the use of sketches as a design tool, which supports a certain way of design thinking. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

10 – solar house (reconstructed model). an architectural solution to the question of energy efficiency, which went beyond technical or constructive questions. (image credit: bertrand cavalier)

in 1980, the german architect oswald mathias ungers realized a design for a solar house. ungers’ design was never executed and has since fallen into oblivion. however, with the project ungers most clearly defined his approach to a sustainable architecture.

during a summer school in july 2018 at the ungers archiv für architekturwissenschaft (uaa) in cologne, we analyzed the project together with students from the ku leuven, faculty of architecture and the kunstakademie düsseldorf.

the design for the solar house served as a case study to open up the broader historical contexts and to activate the design’s potential for a contemporary discussion on sustainability. looking beyond the interpretative frameworks established by ungers himself, we examined his assumption that sustainability belongs to the field of architectural aesthetics proper rather than being a technological addition to the building.

following the summer school, six students decided to continue their work on the subject and to further expand on the ideas developed in the discussions. the results are now presented in this exhibition alongside a selection of drawings from the uaa.

students:
alessandro cugola
lisbeth decloedt
natasha kurmashova
tom schoonjans
juliane seehawer
fien werckx

with support from: ungers archiv für architekturwissenschaft (uaa)

the design of the exhibition scenography was determined by and executed with materials available from previous exhibitions at civa.

negotiating  ungers. the aesthetics of sustainability is the first in a series of international summer school workshops at the uaa. the aim of the workshops is to look at some of ungers’ less well-known projects and to reconsider them in the light of questions emerging out of of todays’ transformational global processes.

negotiating ungers. the aesthetics of sustainability, book, 2019

last updated November 5, 2024