Talk and Tour: Conflicts and Solutions. About Architecture as a Critical Tool

Talk with Jesko Fezer (Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik, Berlin) and Joanna Zawieja (architect, Stockholm), moderator: Axel Wieder (Index, Stockholm)
Location: Goethe-Institute, Bryggargatan 12A, 111 21 Stockholm

The event will continue at 20:00 with a guided tour and reception at Index, Kungsbro Strand 19, 112 26 Stockholm.

The talk will discuss the potential of architecture and design as a medium for critical practice. While design is often seen as a tool to solve problems, the talk will focus on the conditions and parameters which set the framework for design, and the roles and hierarchies between designers and users. In recent years, design became increasingly and prominently showcased in cultural institutions. The starting point for this shared event by the Goethe-Institute Stockholm and Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation will be the two recently re-designed spaces of the organizations. Can this context provide a space for social and political issues in design?

Since autumn 2014, Index is working with the Berlin-based architecture and design office Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik on the design of Index’ spaces. Located in a modernist housing complex from the 1930s opposite of Stockholm’s central railway station, the design process is part of a re-consideration of the function of a space for contemporary art in contemporary Sweden, with changing economic conditions and new audiences and agendas. Stockholm-based architect Joanna Zawieja has, together with architect Ylva K Rosvall, designed the new library space of the Goethe Institute, Läsesalong Pilen, on the ground floor of Bryggargatan 12A, inaugurated in 2014. Previously used as an exhibition space, the new design combines various functions – as foyer, bar, library and reading room – to create a social space in the most prominent and visible location in the building.

The event will give an insight in current thinking about the design process and a changing understanding of the roles designers, with short presentations by Jesko Fezer, co-founder of the Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik, and Joanna Zawieja.

Joanna Zawieja is an architect, living and working in Stockholm. Her practice explores the building process as a way to conceive and discuss architecture. Since 2014 Zawieja works for the Swedish Public Art Agency responsible for projects regarding urban development.

Jesko Fezer is an architect, curator and writer, living in Berlin. He is a professor for experimental design at the HfbK in Hamburg and works in different constellations on projects that explore the social relevance of design practice. He’s a co-founder of the Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik, which has recently realized projects for Kino Arsenal and HKW Berlin, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Center for Contemporary Art Singapore and Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory Utrecht. He’s a co-founder of the bookshop Pro qm, the magazine An Architektur and the cooperation ifau and Jesko Fezer. In October 2015, the exhibition “Wohnungsfrage” that fezer co-curated will open at HKW Berlin, accompanied by an extensive series of publications.

The event is a collaboration of Index with the Goethe-Institut Stockholm.