The scenography proposed by B612associates is a spatial re-creation which evokes the physical and sensitive density of Shanghai, its activity, its inner contradictions, its constant evolution, its multiplicity and its dynamism... all these qualities that make it a unique city. The purpose of this evocation is to allow the visitor to better understand the work of Chinese architects and town planners. Its inscription within the texture of the metropolis is done in a way that both reflects symbiosis and contrast in regard to its diverse and rich surrounding as the context the architects need to take into account is the result of social but also and mainly economical pressure they can't ignore.
Textile screens create volumes of different heights that build up the spatial material of the exhibition within which the visitor is invited to stroll. They are allusions to the numerous skyscrapers of the mega polis. Their supple fabric and their implementation are referring to the Chinese traditional paintings on rollers. They put forward the constant paradoxality that today in China confronts the strikingly expanding industrialization with secular concepts.
The thickness of the city, its diversity, concentration and ramifications are subjects that are also present within the work of the photographer Frédérik Froument. The pictures presented in the present exhibition are extracts from a larger corpus entitled “New Babylon cities”. With an attentive and fresh eye they recreate through a mythic ambiance the daily life of sprawling Shanghai.
This daily life full of contrasts (from the growing identity and individual conscience to the still dominant presence of the political power and the unconscious still deeply influenced by the Taoist and Confucian philosophy) creates together with its physical environment the “topos” on which the Chinese architects and urban planners are working.
To some extent, this still versatile and evolving “topos” underpins the Chinese architectural and urban planning research with an experimental character. Therefore the importance of research has been transcribed in the scenography through the reconstitution of a Chinese urban institute studio and presents its daily work.
Through a serie of visual projections, the exhibition also wish to evoke the numerous exceptions and extreme sensations that constantly punctuate this daily life, the vividly contrasted context of Shanghai and the multiplicity of its facets : from the felted atmosphere of the bars along the mythic Bund to the floor of high towers that covers its suburb.
B612associates
Scenographer
Scenography of the exhibition
March 2008
THE SCENOGRAPHERS
B612associates is an office of architecture and urban planning. Our portfolio includes project of architecture and urban planning at a larger scale but also conception at smaller scale such as design and scenography. It is based on the the integration, of all parameters that will contribute to the quality of the project from the
very beginning of our study to its realization aiming at the production of contemporary concepts of quality that are integrated within their urban, spatial and social environment.
We believe that architecture arises through a combination of passion and rigor. We believe that multidisciplinary competences within a coordinated team facilitate this process. Founded in 1997, our firm has today a team of 7 registered architects and urban designers with sound background in the field of engineering, architecture and urban planning but also philosophy, history and tvvaheory of architecture and contemporary art
PUBLICATION, PRIZES AND DISTINCTIONS
The work of B612 A S S O C I A T E S has received praise from Belgian and international critics in various books and architectural magazines, among which "Belgian New Architecture" edited by Prismes editions, the Europan 6 catalog but also the international architecture magazine "Detail". Their work has also been acclaimed by Belgium's leading newspapers "Le Soir" and "La Libre Belgique", and by the wider public in general.
B612 A S S O C I A T E S is the author of critical essays published in architecture magazines such as "A+", and contributed to groupmonographies such as "Inside Density", edited by La Lettre Volée in 2003, as well as, more recently,"Tourism Revisited", also edited by La Lettre Volée.
The firm has often been invited to present its specific approach of contemporary architecture and urban design at conferences and exhibitions in Belgium and abroad: in the Belgian cities of Brussels, Liège, and Louvain-la-Neuve, as well as in London for the London Consortium (Architectural Association, Tate Gallery, London Institute of Contemporary Art) and at the1st Biennale of Architecture in Beijing.
Recipient of the 2004 Prize for Contemporary Architecture of the District of Uccle – Brussels, B612 A S S O C I A T E S is also the winner of numerous competitions for public projects and social housings for various public services (2003 District of Molenbeek – 2004 District of Schaerbeek, CPAS of Anderlecht – 2005 City of Brussels, District of Ixelles, – 2006 District of Foret – 2007 Region of Brussels Capital)
