16/07/2003
16/07/2003

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Brendan Lee

Eindrücke in Wort und Bild zur Ausstellungseröffnung "An der Klippe" H. Illmaier, Architekt 1957-2001, im HDA Graz von Brendan Lee

"Architecture and the City"

Arriving at the opening reception of
'An Der Klippe' at the HDA, I stepped tentatively through the door, unsure of what to expect inside. In my experience, these gallery parties can be awkward affairs, especially when you do not know anyone else there and your objective as a poor architecture student is merely to look as naturally cool as you can while you wander around and replenish your stomach with food from the buffet and drink from the bar. The rewards may be great (even more so if the exhibition is actually worth seeing), but the risk is always that you will stick out as the poor student that you are. And ultimately, everyone wants to be accepted by all the cool architects in black, right? (This is of course what they teach us in New York)

Fears of rejection ran through my mind, though this was somewhat tempered by the fact that as a foreigner with limited language skills, one’s threshold of embarrassment begins to diminish rapidly. While I can brazenly fake an Italian accent and gamely work my way through my high school French, I do not have the slightest clue of where to start with German. It dawned on me that because I speak no German, I could always shamelessly plead ignorance as I stumbled out the door clutching a glass of Weißer Spritzer, my pockets filled with mortadella and bread. Thankfully, I did not have to resort to that. While I didn’t exactly fit in, I was struck immediately by good vibes from the quiet roar of the crowd and progressive rotation of music.

For me, this was as good of an introduction as anything else to architecture in Graz. It is true that there have been many buildings to see and a lot of work to do. In my spare time, I have seen many things that I liked a lot, and some that I did not like as much (I won’t name any names). But the sheer abundance of quality contemporary architecture in settings of daily life is rather embarrassing for me to acknowledge, as I come from a place where theories of “Architecture of the Everyday” are sometimes appropriated as an ironic smokescreen for the tolerance and embrace of the banal, or worse, of kitsch.

The exhibition party had a particularly powerful resonance with me, however, because I have come to believe that architecture is a social occasion. It is of course an intellectual and artistic pursuit, and a technical challenge as well, but in my (perhaps naïve) view, architecture is ultimately a social practice. Thus life and architecture should become, in some inexplicable way, completely intertwined. I think I was reminded of this by being at the opening party and seeing the architectural community of Graz gathering in a lively tribute to Herwig Illmaier. What I enjoyed most about An Der Klippe was that it seemed to me not merely an exhibition about architecture or a life in architecture. It was instead a celebration of a life of architecture. If it is true (and perhaps tragic) that some of us may live and breathe architecture, we must not forget that sometimes the world of architecture is not so far from life itself.

Brendan Lee, 10.07.03

Brendan Lee studiert an der Yale University, Architecture School, New Haven, Connecticut.

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