The first comprehensive retrospective of the Amsterdam-based studio Inside Outside / Petra Blaisse in Switzerland, curated by Fredi Fischli and Niels Olsen.
Since its foundation in 1991, the studio has realized world-wide projects ranging from the design of textiles and exhibitions and the production of entire interiors to landscape architecture. As the name implies, the variable relationship between inside and outside is a central issue that feeds into the interdisciplinary approach of combining knowledge and craftsmanship from several fields. From the start, Inside Outside has collaborated closely with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and with many other architects, curators and artisans.

Inside Outside creates spaces that are interrelated and hybrid, interacts with specific surroundings and challenges our expectations through an often startlingly unconventional use of materials and techniques. Two large-scale curtains produced for the exhibition present a retrospective of Inside Outside’s work. They literally unfold the studio’s production strategies, as illustrated by Blaisse’s “recipe drawings,” which not only detail the craft involved in production but also give an insight into the studio’s systematic approach to design.

These curtains are hybrid since they both exhibit and display; they are translucent and move in space. Their use in the exhibition quintessentially illustrates the studio’s blithe disregard of the conventions dictated by materials. The fragile, diaphanous textile out of which the upper part of the curtain is made defies its colossal size, while the lower part, a translucent PVC, serves as a support for archival material documenting the studio’s wide-ranging projects in interior design and landscape architecture.

The curtains are mounted in the center of the building by German architect Gottfried Semper. Semper emphasized the crucial and intricate relationship between architecture and textiles, assigning strong space-defining qualities to the latter. Inside Outside have responded to this with a site-specific intervention consisting of soft architecture that creates the illusion of a false perspective and enables us to perceive the space differently.

During the exhibition, there will be a programme of lectures and talks with renowned protagonists from the fields of research and practice, that will unfold along central topics inherent to the practice of Inside Outside / Petra Blaisse (see below).

Forbo Flooring Systems is the main partner of the exhibition.

Inside Outside talks
 
A collaboration between gta exhibitions and E.A.T. / Engadin Art Talks

Wednesday, October 10, 2018
ETH Zurich, Zentrum, HG E 7 (fully booked)
Live transmission: HG E 5

5–5:20pm:
Petra Blaisse, An introduction on “Exhibiting Architecture”

5:20–6pm: 
Penelope Curtis, “Art on Display—The Post-War Context”

6:30–8pm: 
Sarah Morris, Introduction and screening of “Finite and Infinite Games”

Thursday, October 18, 2018
ETH Zurich, Zentrum, HG F 7 (fully booked)
Live transmission: HG F 5

6:30–7:30pm 
Rem Koolhaas, lecture on “Inside Outside”

More information

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Venue
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Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) | ETH Zürich. ETH Zurich, Zentrum, Main Hall. Rämistrasse 101. 8092 Zurich. Switzerland
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Dates
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October 10–19, 2018
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Petra Blaisse (London 1955), more popularly known in the world of architecture, for her colaboration in some of the most brilliant projects by Rem Koolhaas, as the carpets and finishes for the Seattle Central Library (2000-2004) or finishes and curtains for the Casa da Música in Porto (1999-2005) and acoustic walls, started her career at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, in the Department of Applied Arts. It was there that Blaisse first collaborated with Koolhaas. From 1987, she worked as freelance designer and won distinction for her installations of architectural work, in which the exhibited work was challenged more than displayed. Gradually her focus shifted to the use of textiles, light and finishes in interior space and, at the same time, to the design of gardens and landscapes.

In 1991, she founded Inside Outside. Since 1999 Blaisse invited specialist of various disciplines to work with her and currently the team consists of about ten people of different nationalities. Inside Outside works globally on projects of increasing technical sophistication and scale. Throughout the years, Inside Outside has collaborated with various architects and designers. Blaisse has lectured and taught extensively in Europe, Asia and the United States.

In the past years, the opening of a number of public and private buildings in which Inside Outside implemented interior and landscape interventions brought the work of Blaisse’s studio to the attention of a broader public. Examples are the restoration project for the Hackney Empire Theatre in London (all curtains, 2000-2005), the gardens, carpets and finishes for the Seattle Central Library (2000-2004), finishes and curtains for the Casa da Música in Porto (1999-2005) and acoustic walls and curtains for the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart.

For landscape design, the studio presently works, together with OMA Hong Kong and Rotterdam, on the landscape masterplan for the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong and on public gardens (Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Qatar Foundation Headquarters and Education City Library) and on master plans for new urban development areas in Ghadames and Sebha, Libya.

ACT > 01.2019 

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Published on: October 9, 2018
Cite: "Inside Outside vs Petra Blaisse: A Retrospective" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/inside-outside-vs-petra-blaisse-a-retrospective> ISSN 1139-6415
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