"Obras Públicas - Arquitectura de Servidores Públicos"

Creada inicialmente por la oficina de Rem Koolhaas, OMA, para la Bienal de Arquitectura de Venecia del año pasado, el galerista Johann König de Berlín ha invitado a la exposición "Obras Públicas - Arquitectura de Servidores Públicos" a su recien renovada galería Iglesia St. Agnes en Berlín. La exposición pone de relieve el urbanismo innovador en los años 60 y 70, con la presentación de fotografías, dibujos e información básica sobre los edificios públicos de arquitectos desconocidos, y tiene como objetivo apreciar un hueco en la arquitectura europea que ha sido pasado por alto anteriormente.

"Public Works – Architecture by Civil Servants“, St. Agnes, Berlin-Kreuzberg (Alexandrinenstr 118-121), hasta el 14 de abril de 2013.

Comisariada por Reinier de Graaf y Laura Baird

A continuación. Un pequeño vídeo de la inauguración de la exposición de AMO, "Public Works" exposición en Berlín, Alemania.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, large public works departments were common in Europe. Many of these departments employed architects, who, as civil servants, worked to serve the public cause. Even today, the legacy - the public buildings which remain standing - looks refreshingly modern and innovative.

Reinier de Graaf calls the 60s and 70s - the heyday of public architecture - 'a short-lived, fragile period of naïve optimism - before the brutal rule of the market economy became the common denominator.' De Graaf notes 'a strange paradox that precisely the benign ideology of the welfare state chose to be represented by an architectural style known as Brutalism.'

The exhibition, curated by AMO - OMA's research-based think tank - showcases fifteen of these architectural masterpieces realized for the greater good by architects employed by the public sector. On display will be work by architects employed by the Greater London Council, the Public Works Department of Amsterdam, the Dutch Rijksgebouwendienst, the Senatsbauverwaltung of West Berlin, and work from various architects in France and Italy as members of special 'Architect Councils', 'guiding' the public sector on matters of architecture and urbanism.

The exhibition is a mix of photographic record of the buildings in their current state and archival material. It first appeared in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini, as part of the 13th Architecture Biennale, 2012. It has now been relocated to ST AGNES, which is one of the buildings which features prominently in the exhibition itself. It will be open in ST AGNES from March 7 - April 16, 2013.

Txt.- AMO

Photography by Frans Parthesius