Collective City
2015
Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture in Shenzhen, China
“Collective City” is a Visionary Cities Project
Collective City explores spatial, organizational, and material ingenuities born out of the forces and pressures of the contemporary city, answered by the architectural amateur, and used by everyone. As such, the exhibition foregrounds an essential terrain instructive for architecture. The examples highlighted here are important to the way the world is built, influential in its capacities to mobilize, and mesmerizing in its strangeness, yet outside the architectural radar. The exhibition documents, organizes, and projects a catalog of existing inventions and tactics found across the globe (often outrageous, sometimes humorous, but always embedded in the here and now) with the ambition to establish a dictionary of ideas that can act simultaneously as a reality-check and sourcebook. We are interested in how the dynamics of global urbanization effectively infuence architecture; or to put it more bluntly, how the intelligences of the existing city can be engaged by architecture. From a street-runway intersection in Gibraltar, via the Osaka baseball stadium-turned-model village, to stilt houses in international waters at Biscayne Bay, these examples form a new city that in the exhibition creates a massive urban panorama, describing different forms of architectural urbanism.
The Biennale is curated by Aaron Betsky, Alfredo Brillembourg, Doreen Heng Liu, and Hubert Klumpner. Their official statement reads: “Featuring over 75 exhibitors from six continents, 2015 UABB will be set around the central theme ‘Re-Living The City,’ enabling the participants to explore how the reimagining, repurposing, and remaking of our existing urban spaces and architecture can improve the way people experience cities. It will open in Shenzhen on 4 December 2015, and will take over the former Dacheng Flour Factory in Shekou, Shenzhen, one of China’s first Special Economic Zones, while the Xipu New Residence in Longgang District will act as an affiliated venue.”
Project description Alexander Eisenschmidt.
©2016 Visionary Cities Project.
Team: Alexander Eisenschmidt (director), Paul Mosley, Matthew Busscher, Daisey Martinez, Janina Sanchez, Anton Tonchev.
Media:
“Collective City Exhibition Opens at Shenzhen’s Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture,” Designboom, by Nick Brink, January 2016.︎
“Collective City,” UrbanNext, by Marta Ariza, February 2016.︎
“Review: Shenzhen UrbanismArchitecture Bi-City Biennale 2015” DesignCurial via Blueprint, by Herbert Wright, February 2016.︎