After first experiencing the city at the time of the fall of the Wall, Francesca Ferguson came back to live and work in Berlin, evolving her practice as a curator of architecture and urbanism, in particular initiating urban drift, an international network to develop urban strategies focused on void spaces and peripheral zones. Between 2006 and 2009 she was Director of the Swiss Architecture Museum (SAM) in Basel and is at present working on a forthcoming publication: Make_Shift City, which looks at critical spatial practice and 'austerity urbanism'.
Francesca Ferguson is a curator of architecture and urban design, consultant on journalistic and urban projects, and founder of urban drift. Based in Switzerland and Berlin, she is currently editor in chief of Make_Shift City, a publication on critical spatial practice and 'austerity urbanism', which will be published by Jovis Publishers in January 2014. A conversation series she has curated: Face to Face, between architects and their chosen counterparts, starts at the DAZ - German Architecture Centre, Berlin, on 23rd September 2013.
»I came to the city with ABC News on November tenth, 1989, to cover the fall of the Berlin Wall for television and I have stayed here ever since ABC set up a Berlin office. At that time, East Berlin was a good point from which to look towards Eastern Europe and investigate the profound changes taking place there.«
»My curatorial direction has been vastly determined by the rapid pace of change in Berlin’s urban fabric, and by the architecture and urban design strategies one could see evolving within the context of this city in particular. Ad-hoc urbanism coupled with bombastic and often flawed urban masterplans, symbolic spatial appropriations – such as that of the defunct Palast der Republik – alongside the demolition of architectural jewels such as the Ahornblatt restaurant, to make way for anodyne “investor-architecture”: all of this has fueled a discourse on critical spatial practice that still drives my work today. I have experienced no other city where one can create such useful links between disciplines, and I intend to continue to work with that – between the art scene, the design world and architecture/urbanism.«
»I think a crucial issue in Berlin is the sale of publicly-owned lands to the highest bidder – a policy pursued by the Senate for Finance and the state-owned property fund, the Liegenschaftsfonds. Civic engagement is now leading to a review of this very short-sighted approach to some of Berlin’s most precious spatial capital. There is also an urgent need to counterbalance the rampant property speculation here with affordable housing.«
Slovenian architect Bostjan Vuga has been in and out of Berlin since before the Wall fell. Returning for two years in 2011, Vuga taught architecture at the Technische Universität as a guest professor. His Berlin stretches from 1980s ruins to contemporary new glass-and-steel architecture – guess which he finds more interesting?
Bostjan Vuga was guest professor in the Architecture and Design Innovation Program (ADIP) at TU Berlin from 2011 to 2013. He studied at the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana and the AA School of Architecture in London. He has lectured, taught, and been a critic at architectural schools, conferences, and symposiums in Slovenia and internationally, including the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the AA School of Architecture, the Bauhaus Kolleg in Dessau, the IAAC in Barcelona, at the ETH in Zurich, and at the Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien and Academy of Visual Arts Vienna. As a visiting editor, he took part in two issues of AB Architectural Bulletin. He is a frequenter contributor of articles on architecture and urban planning to a wide range of both professional and general-interest publications.
»Long before I was a guest professor of architecture at TU Berlin, I spent two weeks in Berlin in 1988, attending the European Assembly of Students of Architecture (EASA). We all stayed in a big tent next to the Anhalter Bahnhof ruins. My impression of Berlin at that time was very much linked to the Wim Wenders movie Wings of Desire. We had a party in the ex-hotel Esplanade, an abandoned building at that time and the very same building where Nick Cave performs in the movie. And I was super astonished when I followed train tracks that ended in the Berlin Wall. I confess I found the interior of the now-demolished Palast der Republik in East Berlin much more interesting than an IBA housing development. Bonjour tristesse!«
»I have always wondered why, with so many creative people and so many empty places around, quite a lot of new construction going on, and so many well-trained architects around, there are so few examples of stimulating new architecture in this big city. It is so laid back, so austere and even boring. It’s more poor than sexy. Open the city for young creative architects! Dare to change the image of Berlin! As it stands, Berlin is not a test field for new architecture.«
»Being in and out of the city over the years, I’ve slowly learnt what I miss about Berlin. People, people, people: the mixture of people and ethnic groups. Also gigantic group karaoke sessions in Mauer Park, 3-day parties, and swimming the Spree River. Now I will also miss the 1960s generic, urban, German corporate smell of Ernst Reuter Platz. Not good for your soul, but good for your brain.«
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