gmp Foundation: the next aac workshop starts 28 February 2013
Public lectures and design practice for the museum of the future
Outstanding personalities involved in the discussion on museums will each give a lecture at the Academy for Architectural Culture (aac), which was founded by Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg; the subject will be the “Museum of the Future”. The lectures by Volker Staab, Hans Günter Merz, Christoph Elsässer and Johannes Kuehn will be given at the Rainvilleterrasse campus in Hamburg; they are free of charge and open to all those interested. The lectures complement the curriculum of the next aac workshop which runs from 28 February to 21 March under the title “Technoversum - Museum of the Future". This workshop will be led by Meinhard von Gerkan, Stephan Schütz and Nicolas Pomränke. Johannes Kuehn (Kuehn Malvezzi Architects) will speak on “Fittings, Passstücke” on 7 March and Christoph Elsässer (West8) will speak on “Open Space – Today and in the future” on 11 March. Volker Staab’s (staab architects) lecture, “Museum building – New museums” will take place on 13 March, and the day after, Hans Günter Merz (HG Merz) will talk on the subject “Altgier | Neugier. Cupidity for the old | Curiosity for the new”.
Workshop subject This workshop, devoted to the museum of the future, is already the second workshop to take place at the new aac premises at the Rainvilleterrasse campus in Hamburg. The workshop’s 20 scholarship students will be studying the site of the former Anhalter Güterbahnhof in Berlin. It is situated in the direct vicinity of the German Technology Museum (Deutsches Technikmuseum) and, together with the “Technoversum”, will form part of the new museum quarter. The Museum is aiming to double its exhibition space and pursue a new concept: the idea is to create new theme compositions in the form of multi-subject exhibition clusters that go beyond the traditional structure of technology museums where categories such as motor cars, aeroplanes or ships are the standard. Currently, the site is lacking an appropriate entrance setting, and the buildings and exhibitions are not physically interconnected. The task of the aac workshop participants is therefore to create a master plan for the whole site and its relationship with the surrounding open space and urban texture. In addition, they will be asked to find an architectural solution for the Technoversum’s additional required floor space and the future main entrance.
The Academy for Architectural Culture (aac) The aac was established by gmp’s founding partners Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg and, over the last five years, has been offering gifted architectural students and young architects from different countries valuable additional qualification in the form of workshops. This private, not-for-profit institution receives funding from the gmp Foundation with the aim of promoting further educational training. Prior to this year’s workshop on the Technoversum in Berlin, participants worked on architectural concepts for affordable housing in Hamburg and Shanghai (2012) and, using Berlin’s Tegel airport as an example, on strategies for a sustainable city, TXL+ (2009). The aac workshops reflect the gmp philosophy and provide experience and the implementation of architecture in a social context, offering insights into large international design commissions. In addition to Meinhard von Gerkan and his partners, the workshops are regularly tutored by well-known visiting professors. An excursion and exhibition will round off the three-week curriculum of practical design, critiques and lectures.
