Let's Play

In the contemporary world architects, buildings, projects and books can interact with each other in a hundred different ways. Add to this the diversity of conceptions of architecture. For every one of these concepts, for every kind of ambiguous definition of architecture, the conversation presents itself differently and demands a different answer. The exhibition does not raise any new questions, as it does not speak a new language or present a new form; rather it conveys the old language of composing through an everyday medium – a poster. Each poster carries with it a different vision of the past, of the precedents, of the icons of architecture. This fast-medium unfolds the innumerable possibilities for imagining architectural dialog in the present. The students then recognized the need to examine how an “old” concept relates to the “new” building, how “new” forms of architecture available today revisit an “old” book, and how the interplay of “old” and “new” items produce multiple interacting blueprints for contemporary architecture. Tracking all of these visions simultaneously on a 2D surface is almost impossible, yet it is worth to PLAY!

This exhibition presents twenty-nine posters co-produced by the students of architecture in the course ARCH430 Seminar on Contemporary Architecture, which was co-instructed by Lale Özgenel, Pelin Yoncacı Arslan, and Nesrin Erdoğan.

_{HOW THEY PLAYED: Throughout the semester, the students have produced 4by4 posters on selected themes which they related to 4 architects, 4 buildings, 4 books, and 4 “etc.” At the final step of their curatorial act, each poster’s 16 items were re-selected by the newly formed groups of 2 simultaneously through a collective whiteboard so to be transformed into 3by3 posters, this time with the themes they came up with and away from any -ism label.}