Lecture by Ben van Berkel as part of the Vienna Sliver Lectures

As part of the Sliver Lectures lecture series organized by the Vienna University of Applied Arts, Dutch architect Ben van Berkel from the Amsterdam studio UNStudio will give a lecture titled UN, Vienna and Us on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, starting at 7:00 PM.

Ben van Berkel studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987.

In 1998, Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos established UNStudio (United Net). UNStudio presents itself as a network of specialists in architecture, urban development, and infrastructure. Current projects include the restructuring of the station area of Arnhem, the mixed-use Raffles City in Hangzhou, a masterplan for Basauri, a dance theatre for St. Petersburg, and the design and restructuring of the Harbor Ponte Parodi in Genoa. Ben van Berkel has lectured and taught at many architectural schools around the world. Currently, he is Professor of Conceptual Design at the Staedelschule and for the Spring term 2011, he was awarded the Kenzo Tange Visiting Professor‘s Chair at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Central to his teaching is the inclusive approach of architectural works integrating virtual and material organization and engineering constructions.

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A brief observation from Ben van Berkel's lecture on Tuesday
With a slight delay, we parked right in front of the school entrance. By that time, the second skylight was already bursting at the seams, so we tried to find a free spot in one of the side windows. This allowed us to quickly explore the school and return after the lecture.
I set off for Vienna with a notion formed by the stories of people who had worked at UN Studio. However, everything negative was overshadowed by direct experience and impressions from the lecture. It was not a dry chronological description of individual projects, but a series of thought processes traversing the entire work of Ben van Berkel. Thanks to the verbal explanation, it was easier to see the interconnections between the buildings. Berkel seeks context in a different way than by imitating the surrounding structures. In his design, he follows the topography of the city, its dynamics and specificities, which he then transforms into concrete, immovable projects.
From the very foundation, I also had to correct my view of Angewandte. Since my last visit, Hani Rashid has joined the teaching staff, and Professor Wolfgang Tschapeller from the Vienna Academy proposed the reconstruction of the Schwanzer wing. Many people criticize Angewandte for attracting students with global stars, who only appear at the school during final submissions. Lynn or Díaz logically cannot travel every week for consultations, but the everyday functioning is perfectly ensured by local assistants, who were present in the studio even during our evening visits after Berkel’s lecture. There was a clear mutual interest here. I was most pleased to see that even in Greg Lynn's digital studio, physical models still play a primary role. Moreover, Lynn chooses themes that seek a relationship with iconic architecture: after the Royal Saltworks at Arc et Senans by Ledoux, this year's students were working on the extension of Asplund’s library in Stockholm.
The school gave the impression of an endless party. During warm summer nights, the most enjoyable experiences are offered by the rooftop bridge connecting the historical building with the Schwanzer extension, which will soon undergo reconstruction by Wolfgang Tschapeller, and the magical bridge over the Vienna Ringstrasse will be replaced by echoes of the Haus-Rucker-Co projects.