Exhibition: Narrative Architecture

Opened on January 18, 2019, the exhibition held at Haus der Architektur (HDA) in Graz put to display architecture models that were the result of a narrative structural analysis of selected short stories from twentieth century world literature. The models were grouped according to three spatial configurations. The first group gathered together projects derived from the short stories of the American author Thomas Pynchon (1937). The second displayed works relating to Franz Kafka (1883—1924) and Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961), while the third showed projects evolved from the short stories of Argentinean author Jorge Luis Borges (1899—1986). The exhibition of each individual project consisted of three layers: a literary text in the form of a citation, a three-dimensional model, and a presentation board that showed the translation process of each story into an architectural structure.

At the exhibition opening, the curators of the exhibition, Daniel Gethmann and Petra Eckhard, were joined in discussion by Kristen Kreider, Professor of Fine Art and Director of the PhD program at Goldsmith College in London, and James O’Leary, Associate Professor and Director of the MA Situated Practice program at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London.

Exhibited were works by Iris Athenstaedt, Julian Kebitsch, Nina Pertiller, Eva Portenkirchner, Theresa Reisenhofer, Jomo Ruderer, Jana Rieth, Vera Schabbon, and Nadja Schaupp. These works were developed as part of two master studio courses ("Thomas Pynchon's House" & "Design: A Fiction") at the Institute of Architectural Theory, Art History and Cultural Studies at TU Graz.