An exciting and wide-ranging exhibition at the MAK in Vienna: Eastern Promises: Contemporary Architecture and Spatial Practices in East Asia is inaugurated with a private view at 7pm on 4 June, opening to the public from 10am on 5 June. Focusing on recent developments and projects in China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, the exhibition showcases a rich variety of architectural and urban projects notable for their incorporation of new forms of social awareness, ecological strategy and artistic practice. From mass urban housing in South Korea and illegal parasitic architecture in Taiwan to state architectural influence in China and Japanese convenience stores, the exhibition includes work of well-known and established architects like the Pritzker Prize winning Wang Shu of Amateur Architecture Studio and Kazuyo Sejima and Rye Nishizawa of SANAA‚ as well as emerging and young practitioners whose work is being exhibited internationally for the first time.
Accompanied by a film program, this unique exhibition provides a fascinating insight into the current culture of architectural production in East Asia, one “less interested in iconic objects and spectacular forms than in a structural realignment of society in its spatial dimensions.” Well worth heading down to the Ringstrasse for!
Eastern Promises: Contemporary Architecture and Spatial Practices in East Asia
Private View: Tuesday 4 June, 7pm
Exhibition open: 5 June – 6 October, 2013
MAK Exhibition Hall
MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art
Weiskirchnerstraße 3
1010 Vienna, Austria
To whet your appetite, here's one of the short films commissioned specially for the exhibition, of a featured project: the Chinese Academy of Art in Hangzhou, designed by Amateur Architecture Studio. The film is less about the building's tectonics than its occupation and how it beds down in its context, underlining the exhibition's focus on the relationship between architecture and everyday spatial practice. (© Andreas Fogarasi / Christian Teckert / MAK)
