Pavilions – Architectural Enjoyment and Polemic

Frankfurt/Main, May 19, 2009

Press release

“Pavilions– Architectural Enjoyment and Polemic”

A Deutsches Architekturmuseum exhibition, Frankfurt/Main

July 11 – Sept. 20, 2009, ground floor

Private view: Friday, July 10, 2009, 7 p.m.

Media conference: Thurs., July 9, 2009, 11 a.m.

Temporary architecture is not only a matter of experimental thought and constructing, but always also involves building for climatically warm zones and temperate seasons. To fit the summer, Deutsches Architekturmuseum, Frankfurt/Main is devoting itself fully to the subject of pavilion architecture. From July to Sept. 20, 2009 the exhibition on “Pavilions – Architectural Enjoyment and Polemic” will explore the architectural history of temporary structures. By way of a paradigmatic example, Barkow Leibinger Architekten and Werner Sobek Ingenieuren will present the DAM Pavilion. Other outstanding models on show will document the history of the pavilion in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

The design of the DAM Pavilion – planned in 2008 for the Museum für Angewandte Kunst park in Frankfurt/Main but never realized untill now – features a light structure consisting of steel tubes bent across three dimensions and a translucent outer skin. The exhibition also highlights the intense R&D necessary to create the pavilion and includes a life-size mock-up of the pavilion itself.

In the second part of the show, Städelschule Architecture Class (SAC), our partner for the exhibition, offers a unique overview of the polemical world of architectural pavilions. The presentation of models created specially for the exhibition provides new and quite extraordinary insights into the well-known pavilions created in recent architectural history. Modern classics designed by Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Gerrit Rietveld and Frei Otto are juxtaposed to contemporary pavilions created by Toyo Ito, David Adjaye, Álvaro Siza and Diller + Scofidio. The SAC students showcase their proposed designs and the results of their research on a purpose-built 3D wall matrix entitled “The Papillon”.

The exhibition and the construction of the pavilion mock-up are being generously sponsored by Stefan Boehme Group, Drees & Sommer Frankfurt, MBM Konstruktionen, Bayer Sheet Europe, Börner, BPR Schäpertöns, Devold AS and the City of Frankfurt/Main.

On the occasion of the exhibition, Hatje Cantz Verlag is bringing out a lavishly illustrated publication “Der Pavillon – Lust und Polemik in der Architektur” featuring essays by Frank Barkow, Barry Bergdoll, Ben van Berkel, Johan Bettum, Christian Brensing, Kerstin Bußmann, Beatriz Colomina, Nikolaus Hirsch, Werner Sobek and Wolfgang Sundermann.

Press images released for publication are available as of this press release and for the duration of the exhibitions as downloads on our Website

!

Press Desk

Press + PR

Deutsches Architekturmuseum

Schaumainkai 43 | D-60596 Frankfurt/ Main | Germany |

Paul Andreas M.A.

Tel. +49-69-212-36318 / Fax +49-69-212-36386

eMail

1