END[LESS]CITY / PERIPHERAL[C]ITY
As part of Inhabiting the Bageion : architecture as CRITIQUE consists of a transcuratorial architectural event, including exhibitions, films, mixed media as well as a discursive (colloquia) element within the Bageion Hotel, Omonoia Square, Athens. In keeping with the underlying objectives of the Biennale’s ongoing programme - the exhibition frames the city of Athens as a testing-site, and alters current understandings of how architecture– as a discipline, object and discourse- operates within current global socio-political/cultural frameworks. In this way, it offers a reflexive exploration of the different modes of critique within creative practice.
The exhibition consisted of the display of forty architectural projects- carried out by MArch students at Cork Centre for Architectural Education under the supervision of Jason O'Shaughnessy - propose a series of future spaces within Athens, and some of the Islands - and constitute an explorative and critical approach towards new Architectural and Urban Design in Greece.
These projects considering the seeming paradox that Athens is somehow both a European prototype condition for architectural, political, and sociological systems - whilst at the same time - the contemporary city is one that has suffered significance collapse in economic and social terms with a devastating impact on its citizens. Each project is configured as a provocative response to these emerging and new challenges, and there is a distinct sense that the projects might carry something vital about how architecture might respond to the contemporary crises that affects Athens, Greece, and the wider EU.
There is also a sense in the projects of offering alternate and new relationships between architecture and the city, which are here understood in the development of new spatial forms and configurations, new spatio-temporal juxtapositions, new archaeological constructions - all of which challenge that otherwise familiar term of contextualisation that might limit such studies. It is in the way that these projects are so convincingly pursued - that makes Athens more readily understood as a type of living laboratory - rather than the more rarefied classical interpretation - as a site of preservation.
Lead Designers : Jason O'Shaughnessy and Eoin French (DATUM Architecture Studio)
Design Team: Viktor Gekker, Kieran Cremin,
Event Curator/Organiser: Dr Eve Olney
Publication Edited by: Jason O'Shaughnessy, Ciaran Brady
Editorial Team: Jason O'Shaughnessy, Ciaran Brady, Sidra Mushtaq
Essays by: Kieran Bourke, Ciaran Brady, Stephen Burke, Jack flannery, Richard Stokes, Paul Higgisson Michelle Rourke
Digital Editing: Sidra Mushtaq, Vincent Barry, Max de Meester
Installation Team: Jason O'Shaughnessy, Sidra Mushtaq, Vincent Barry, Max de Meester, Eoin French.
Fabrication Team: Modet (Joinery elements), Glenmill Engineering (framing elements), Vincent Barry, Aoife Browne
Exhibitors: Cork Centre for Architecture MArch Graduates 2016 and 2017.
Sponsors: Embassy of Ireland, Greece. Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI)Cork Centre for Architectural Education, DATUM Architecture Studio, PM Group, Glenmill Engineering O’Mahony/Pike Architects, Reddy Architecture + Urbanism, Henry J Lyons Architects
Special Thanks to: Ambassador Orla Hanrahan, Professor Kevin McCartney (Director, CCAE), Katherine Keane (Associate Director, CCAE), Dr Eve Olney, Gerry McCarthy, Aoife Browne, Professor Elias Constantopolous, Poka Yio (Athens Biennale) , Nayia Yiakoumaki (Athens Biennale), National Sculpture Factory, Cork. FAB LAB Limerick, Colaiste Stiofain Naofa (CSN).
