“Any intervention implies destruction. Destroy consciously, and with joy.”
October 1st – December 4, 2010
LECTURES
September 30, 2010
Inaugural lecture
Luigi Snozzi
architect, Lugano
October 28, 2010
Olivier Fazan
architect, Lausanne
November 11, 2010
Geneviève Bonnard
architect, Monthey
November 25, 2010
Pierre-Alain Croset
professor, Facoltà di Architettura del Politecnico di Torino
December 2, 2010
Laurent Stalder
Assistant Professor of Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich
“… the aim of teaching architecture is not simply the forming of brilliant and skilful architects, but rather that of intellectual critics endowed with a moral conscience.”
Luigi Snozzi, during his inaugural lecture at the EPFL in 1987.
“One can learn to build, but to embrace a complex and autonomous discipline responsibly is another matter. Important pedagogical questions inevitably present themselves, such as how far to take the discipline, whether teaching should be approached as a dogma or as a dialogue, and how to present architecture to students who are encountering the subject for the first time. Luigi Snozzi devoted much of his professional life to these questions. He went about teaching project design by using his own work as an example. Answers can thus be searched for within his aphorisms and projects, which are exhibited here. To complete this debate, further response was found in Snozzi’s ex-students. They constitute a generation of architects who have been active in the field for ten to twenty years. Each is presenting a project in which a legacy of the years of study in Snozzi’s studio is apparent.
“The appointment on call of Luigi Snozzi as a professor at the EPFL was certainly not calm nor usual. During its processing, the appointment was suddenly withdrawn, leading to a strong response from the student body. The students organised a demonstration and staged a sit-in in the president’s office, imparting a powerful spirit of resistance. This strategy succeeded and Snozzi ended up directing a large studio there until 1997. Fifty of Snozzi’s past students display their own architectural work around that of their former professor. Whether they have distanced themselves or stuck to his views, all wish to pay homage to this unique architect. The exhibition plays host to a momentous meeting and celebrates an important milestone of Swiss contemporary architecture.
Philippe Beboux & Stéphanie Bender / Dario & Mirko Bonetti / Philippe Bonhôte & Oleg Calame / Geneviève Bonnard / Pierre Bonnet / Giuditta Botta / Ueli Brauen & Doris Wälchli / Sandro Cabrini / Graeme Mann & Patricia Capua Mann / Simon Decker/ Alfonso Esposito & Anne-Catherine Javet / Isabelle Evequoz / Olivier Fazan & Bassel Farra / Alain Fidanza & Philipp Lehmann/ Eric Frei & Kaveh Rezakhanlou / Michele Gaggetta & Mario Ferrari / Olivier Galletti & Claude Matter / Laurent Guidetti & Alvaro Varela / Giacomo & Riccarda Guidotti / Wojciech Kaczura / Jachen Könz / Stefano Moor / Valérie Ortlieb & Alexandre Piuz / Sara Pellegrini / Jan Perneger / Franck Petitpierre / Nicolas Pham / Jacqueline Pittet & Blaise Tardin / Vincent Rapin / Emmanuel Rey / Cédric Schaerrer / Ole Scheeren / Wilfried Schmidt / Mona Trautmann / Ariane Widmer
