Launch of UP issue 09 starring John Hejduk’s Kreuzberger Tor.

Our Sunday guests are Dirk Somers (architect, Antwerp) and Fredi Fischli & Niels Olsen (co-curators of Studiolo and directors of exhibitions at ETH Zürich, the Institute
of the History and Theory of Architecture).

Dirk Somers on Adolf Loos and the notion of normality Adolf Loos was a man of polemic without being a revolutionary. Loos considered being normal a challenge in itself. His entire life Loos wrote and studied about the legitamicy of the appearance of things. Fashion, craftsmanship, classicism, etiquette, hygiene… all these subjects were essential
in his quest to upgrade early 20th century culture to the new conditions of 64 life. Through his work and writings, but also by examining other’s and our own work, we study the question of normality. Is it still possible to design in a normal way, and if so, why would a designer aspire normality?

Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen are curators and directors of gta exhibitions,an institution for art and architecture at the Swiss Federal Insitute for Technology, ETH Zurich. They studied art history and are currently stipends of Kurator at Gebert Stiftung für Kultur in Rapperswil. Together they organized numerous international exhibitions, founded the art space Studiolo
ans initiated the publication series Studiolo / Edition Patrick Frey. This Sunday they will talk about their book with Trix and Robert Haussmann as an example of how they link art and architecture with its history and the contemporary.

Trix and Robert Haussmann are both born in the 1930’s and belong the important Swiss architects. Since the 1960’s they question the rigid modernity of which they are part of. Today they work in the context of contemporary art with a next upcoming exhibition at Kunsthalle Fri-Art in Fribourg.