Face, Pool, Two Towers and Ruin Exhibition

Modernist housing estates are rejected, just as the Haszkovó housing estate in the city of Veszprém, Hungary. Their stories are understood as the stories of failed urban developments, they are grey, sad and soulless. Can something be soulless and grey which gives home to 20.000 inhabitants? Instead of let our prejudices to drive our view on modernist housing estates, is that possible to reconsider our relation and think about them as “real cities” and to complete them with creative ideas?

This collaborative project of five studios apply the concept of “urban artifact” which was established by the Italian architect Aldo Rossi in his 1966 book, The Architecture of the City. The urban artifact is an element that is characterised first and foremost not by its function, but by its type. It is strongly tied to the history of the city, which continuously shapes it, and thus, a complex-stratified, nearly artistic object, filled with meaning and pointing beyond itself, appears in the fabric of the city. Rossi’s conception of this is a reversal of the Modernist approach, according to which the new architecture defines the city, and not that the city defines the new architecture.

On the occasion of Veszprém Design Week this collaborative project invited the visitors to experience a possible way to change the current state of Haszkovó with the help of five portable and durable urban artifacts.

These five objects will serve as playful, outdoor furniture and their architectural quality also help us to see Haszkovó as something similar like a lovely historical downtown in any historical cities. In Veszprém downtown for instance these objects are common, they are the places “where we meet before having party” or places “where we had our first kiss”. The ‘Fire Look Out Tower’, the ‘Statue of Zsuzsi’ or the ‘Clock’ are also well known as identically fulfilled pieces of the urban environment in Veszprém. This project give a chance to define unique objects in Haszkovó which are also able to be fulfilled identically in the future.

Last year 12 Walls exhibition was the very first step of a bigger international collaborative project. That time contemporary emerging architects observed and presented the problem of ornamentation. This exhibition invited five other emerging studios and architects from Greece, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Hungary to present the problem of urban artifacts this year.

In parallel with the installation a complete audio guide were presented during the exhibition that introduced the circumstances and cultural framework of this project. One piece of audio guide was made and attached to each installation and they are available at haszkovo.eu

The exhibition was founded by VEB 2023 - European Capital of Culture

Participants: MAIO, Point Supreme, Supervoid, Edward Crooks, Paradigma Ariadné