The Art of Building – Elevation view – Photo: Hampus Berndtson
LETH & GORI’s exhibition The Art of Building consists of a house and exhibition built inside the OMA designed building BLOX – the new home of The Danish Architecture Centre.
LETH & GORI’s house and exhibition provides an insight into the architectural work and values of LETH & GORI. The project inhabits the space in The Danish Architecture called The Stair Gallery and joins the three separate levels of the gallery in one built structure.
The exhibition is a part of the exhibition series Dreyer’s Architecture Gallery funded by The Dreyer Foundation. The exhibition is open in The Danish Architecture Centre until the 12th of October 2018.
THE EXHIBITION
LETH & GORI’s exhibition is a celebration of everything involved in the process of building. The chaos, the mess and the beauty. The art of making buildings is a chaotic process from beginning to end. The design process can be a mess and the construction phase is per definition chaotic. Mistakes will happen. Mistakes in the design or details that were never considered or drawn. Mistakes during construction are obligatory. Demolition of existing building parts or excavations of the site revealing unknown problems. Things that are built the wrong way or mistakes that occur. Materials that look different or react differently than expected. All this chaos can lead to failure, but it can also be seen as a potential. A source of richness to the project. A possibility to improve the design. A chance to learn. The opportunity to create something deeper and more beautiful. The Art of Building is chaos and beauty and beauty in chaos.
The three spaces of the house are inhabited by an exhibition about the work and values of LETH & GORI. Each space has a separate theme; House, Models and Building Site/ Built Work.
HOUSE
The exhibition is basically conceived and completed as an assignment to build an exhibition house for the specific context of The Stair Galley in BLOX – a house within a house. The design process has included a thorough registration of the building and the construction of both a detailed model in scale 1:20 and mock-up studies in full scale. This has led to a building which connects the three levels of The Stair Gallery. The building is constructed as an open wood skeleton built in pine rafters. The shape of the building follows the landscape and geometry of the gallery space. Between the walls and roof of the structure a bolted hinge detail has been developed which creates a hollow space for the existing glass balustrades of the gallery.
The building is completed with walls in birch plywood, plastic film [vapor barrier] and light fittings.
Re-building
The project has been designed and built so it can be disassembled and reassembled in various ways. After the exhibition period the house will be disassembled, re-designed and rebuilt in a new location in a collaboration between local company GENBYG and LETH & GORI.
MODELS
Models are central to the work of LETH & GORI. The models investigate shape, space, volume, light and material, while also simulating a building process, where the physical meeting with the site is investigated, built and adjusted. A scale less work space, where the big thoughts about the project are explored parallel to specific materials, building techniques and structural ideas.
LETH & GORI’s work with models is a continuous creative process with room for mistakes, improvements, simplifications and modifications. The model allows space for imagination. It opens the work instead of closing it. The model as an artwork in itself. A small piece of architecture accommodating the dreams and telling a story of what is to come.
BUILDING SITE/ BUILT WORK
For LETH & GORI the building site contains a powerful aesthetic potential. On the building site we see the anatomy and tectonic of the building as naked unfinished spaces – as uncovered structures, building systems and materials. This rawness and beauty often disappear in the finished building.
LETH & GORI dream of a strong connection between building site and built work. We focus on the spatial qualities, daylight, light and darkness, and how to utilise materials in new and unorthodox ways. The goal is built works, where the weather and magnitude of nature is embedded in the architectural anatomy – in the building structure, in the tectonic choices and in well thought out building details. Houses with a pragmatic straightforward character and a coherent narrative – from model to building site to built work.
Project: The Art of Building År: 2018 Client: The Dreyer Foundation/ The Danish Architecture Centre Type: Exhibition Program: House + exhibition Area: 60 m2 Architect: LETH & GORI Team: Uffe Leth, Karsten Gori, Rene Søby Jonas Djernes-Bell, Martin Alexander Meincke og Talieh Kaveh Status: Completed