Being in a Biennale - interview #03: Kieran Long
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Invité à participer à FREESPACE, le Centre d’architecture et de design suédois ArkDes présente «Freestanding», une installation qui explore –à travers une collection de dessins historiques et d'œuvres récemment commandées– trois porches de trois des édifices religieux de l’architecte suédois Lewerentz. Son directeur, Kieran Long , répond à nos questions.
Freestanding – ArkDes (The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design), with Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson – Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 - Central Pavilion
Freestanding focuses on three canopies from three of Lewerentz’s most famous religious buildings: the Chapel of the Resurrection at the Woodland Cemetery (1925), Stockholm; the Chapels of St. Knut and St. Gertrud at the Eastern Cemetery, Malmö (1943); and St. Mark’s Church at Björkhagen, Stockholm (1960). Simple in form, these canopies are central to the ritual meaning of the buildings they correspond to, contributing significantly to the visual image of the churches they accompany. The three structures were completed across the span of Lewerentz's career, each designed in a different architectural style to one another. Despite this stylistic diversity, they all create places for public life between the scales of the landscape and the interior.
Through drawings, photography, and large-scale models, Freestanding unfolds the spatial power of the canopies in the form of a three-act play: an inhabitable, sectional scenography and a fabric of experiences that suggest ways in which extra spatial gifts can form the heart of the experience of a place, a ritual, and a landscape.
Texte de présentation du site de la Biennale d'architecture de Venise