6 – 2016

Opulence

Creating beauty from excess is neither new nor particularly ambitious. The opposite, producing opulence from “poor” means and materials, is the current challenge in these precarious times. The architect and theorist Ákos Moravánszky—who provided the key term for this issue—turns the tables in a dialectic sense and finds sophistication in the simple and the plain. This kind of opulence is more difficult to grasp. Materials must be questioned again, spaces interpreted differently in order toderive unexpected richness from their harmony. For this kind of architectural alchemy Louis Kahn’s question to the brick about what it wanted to be is probably the best-known kind of dialogue.The eloquence of present-day building products however fills shelves. All parameters of product qualities are worked on, all ingredients are tested in order to increase visual quality. But is there even a moment of freedom in this unlimited choice? Or did not the world lie precisely in the modular dimensions of the brick? Naturally, a promise still slumbers in the development of the material. What is cast or fired has an innate magic, precisely because its production escapes an ultimate control. But what are the possibilities beyond architectural pathos? A look at art reveals stone quarries. Through the reassessment of the traditional, the valorisation of the lesser, in short the enchantment of the useless surprising effects are achieved. When artist Dieter Roth made a copy of Dürer’s “Hare” out of hare droppings, he gave convention a kick. In a virtually alchemical manner he produced an excess of meaning in the solemn symbolic form, making gold out of waste, as it were. Whereas we still have to learn that millions can be earned with rubbish, the fashion couturiers are a step ahead of us. With upcycling a new aesthetic is created: new clothes already have a history. This gives them a touch of “authenticity”. This richness of references is also the connecting element between the examples of architecture in this issue. They are a cornucopia of meanings. The architecture is charged, and not free from contradiction: diversity, let us embrace you.