negotiating ungers. the construction of communities

an exhibition at ensase with students from the ku leuven, faculty of architecture and the kunstakademie düsseldorf (in collaboration with cornelia escher)

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1 – the exhibition includes installations and analytical presentations as critical comments and counterpoints.

2 – by building the prototype together, the topics of the exhibition were explored in practice.

7 – self-help housing system (s-hhs), prototype, model, scale 1:5 (gjiltinë isufi, aljoscha lahner, fiachre mccarthy, rudolf schingerlin, students of s7/s8 ensase).

3 – the exhibition places the self help housing system in different contexts and interprets it through different formats.

4 – opaque like motion (aljoscha lahner), the self-made tent, a mobile temporary architecture negotiates needs of autonomy and of belonging.

5 – utopian and new communes in the usa (liselotte & oswald mathias ungers), images extracted from a series of essays first published in the swiss architecture journal das werk: architektur und kunst.

6 – never too far to talk: constructing communities through drawing (gjiltinë isufi, fiachre mccarthy), the document explores the notions of conviviality through the act of collaborative drawing.

In 1972, german architect oswald mathias ungers and his students at cornell university in ithaca, ny, developed a prototype for a self-help housing system (s-hhs). shortly before, ungers and his wife liselotte had begun a research project on utopian communities in the united states; the study was published in 1972 under the title communes in the new world 1740-1972. the context in the 1970s under which ungers developed both the s-hhs and the communal research has clear parallels to today’s challenges. today, cities also face a shortage of affordable housing. as a result, people are once again seeking other forms of coexistence or retreating into alternative communities.

during a summer school in july 2021 with the ungers archiv für architekturwissenschaft (uaa) in cologne, we analyzed the projects together with students from the ku leuven, faculty of architecture and the kunstakademie düsseldorf.

the project is used as the starting point to take a new look at both ungers’ work and approaches to to self-build and the associated construction of communities in light of current debates.

following the summer school, four students decided to continue their work on the subject and to further expand on the ideas developed in the discussions.

the exhibition does not provide an overall interpretation of ungers’ project, but represents a variety of voices, reflections, and interpretations of the design. in addition to drawings by ungers and his students, the exhibition includes installations and analytical presentations that critically negotiate ungers’ project. the latter situate the project in its context or reinterpret it in light of contemporary issues.

the exhibition design and a scaled-down s-hhs prototype were developed and built on site during a three-day workshop, at the école nationale supérieure d’architecture de saint-étienne (ensase), with students from the kunstakademie düsseldorf, ku leuven, and ensase.

students:
gjiltinë isufi
aljoscha jahner
fiachra mccarthy
rudolf schingerlin
students s7/s8 ensase

with support from: ungers archiv für architekturwissenschaft (uaa), ofaj/dfjw, the ku leuven, faculty of architecture and the kunstakademie düsseldorf

negotiating ungers. the construction of communities is the third in a series of international summer school workshops with 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 construction of communities

last updated November 5, 2024