Press Pack Symposium 2009

PRESS PACK SYMPOSIUM 2009 1 2009 – THIRD EDITION 5 architects: Burkina Faso, France, Germany, India, Norway. 2009 TIMETABLE • Symposium in March in Paris • Publication Sustainable Design (Birkhäuser) • Touring exhibition • Awards in September 2009 TV screening/projection of the portraits of the five nominated architects Announcement of the Collection winner THE COLLECTION MANIFESTE • Project n° 1 Hermann Kaufmann • Project n° 2 Carin Smuts THE FOUNDING PARTNERS THE SCIENTIFIC COMMIttEE APPENDIX • Sheets from the book Sustainable Design, towards a new ethic in architecture and town planning to be published by Birkhäuser in June CONTACTS • Cité de l’architecture & du Patrimoine Marie-Hélène Contal 1 place du Trocadero 75116 Paris Tél : +33 (0) 1 - 58515200 [email protected] - www.citechaillot.fr • EPAMSA Nicolas Samsoen 1 rue de Champagne 78200 Mantes-la-Jolie Tél : + 33 (0) 1 - 39292121 [email protected] - www.epamsa.fr • Conseil général des Yvelines Anne Weber Hôtel du département, 2 place A. Mignot, 78012 Versailles Tél : + 33 (0) 1 - 39077065 [email protected] - www.yvelines.fr • Jana Revedin, architecte PhD Willroiderstr. 13 - A 9500 Villach tél : +43 (0)4242 - 2418213 [email protected] - www.revedin.com PRESS CONTACTS • Global Award / Collection manifeste IPC - Dominique du Jonchay - tél:01 47 53 93 70 - [email protected] • Établissement public d’aménagement du Mantois Seine Aval (Epamsa) Véronique Drouet - tél: 01 39 29 21 25 - [email protected] • Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine Agostina Pinon - tél: 01 58 51 52 85 - [email protected] WEBSITE www.global-award.org 2 G LO B A L AW A R D F O R SUBS TAINABLE ARCHI T EC T URE The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture and the Collection Manifeste of Architecture in Seine Aval arose out of the fusion of two initiatives. The Cité de l’architecture & du patrimoine wanted to establish an international prize to stimulate debate on sustainable architecture, drawing on the concept proposed by the architect and critic Jana Revedin. This Award goes not to buildings but to architects who share a sustainable development ethic and over the years have put together an approach that is both innovative and responsive to context, culture and diversity. As part of the Seine Aval National Interest Operation, Conseil Général des Yvelines and EPAMSA (Mantois Seine-aval public development Establishment) wanted to establish a contemporary architecture collection that would stand as a record of the revival of this area. Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoy was built in 1928 in this loop of the Seine. Since then, the city and industry have expanded to the hills and this large area encompasses all that is best and most problematic in the modern urban legacy. Its revitalisation is emblematic of the challenges of sustainable urban development. Out of these two aspirations emerged an initiative that is unique in its field, called the Glo- bal Award for Sustainable Architecture/ Collection Manifeste of 21st-Century Architecture in Seine Aval. Through the Award, the partners are seeking to instigate a large-scale public debate on the challenges of 21st-century architecture, and through the Collection – an exemplary focus of experiment in the architecture of the 21st century – to raise awareness of the need to build and live differently. GLOBAL AWARD FOR SUBSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE The purpose of the Award is to create an international community of highly talented architects, and to publicise their approach in order to stimulate an awareness of environmental issues around the world. Every year, an international scientific committee(2) chooses 5 architects for their commitment to and practice of sustainable architecture, in the West and in the emerging nations, in developed cities and on behalf of disadvantaged populations. The purpose of this commitment to diversity is to stimulate debate and discussion, by fo- cusing on approaches to development, a discovery of architectural productions that have something to contribute, a greater awareness of southern hemisphere countries, a diffu- sion of experience. The principles applied by these architects are presented and highlighted each year. The main events are: • a symposium in spring at the Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris, where the 5 nominated architects speak about their work, their motivation, their commitment, • the shooting of documentary films on each winner, broadcast on national television channels and on the Global Award website, • a sustained effort of debate and dissemination, through an international network of architecture centres. New in 2009: • the publication of a collection of monographs, • an annual touring exhibition. 3 THE COLLECTION MANIFESTE OF 21ST-CENTURY ARCHITECTURE The principle of the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture/Collection Manifeste of 21st-Century Architecture in Seine Aval is to create an open-air museum of architecture through building each year a public project in one of the 51 partner communities of the Opération d’Intérêt national (National Interest Operation). The programmes are matched to the needs of the host communities and differ every year, but they are always small public buildings. The winner of the Collection is chosen in September by a jury made up of those personali- ties from the Yvelines department who will finance the project and make it live, advised by international experts.The first two projects are currently underway: • Hermann Kaufmann, Austrian, has designed a rural lodge in Chanteloup- les-Vignes, which is under construction, • Carin Smuts, South African, is working on a project for a municipal multi- service retail project in Follainville-Dennemont. AN INTERNATIONAL NETWORK In 2007, the nominated architects came from India, China, Germany, Austria and France; in 2008, from South Africa, Chile, Italy, the USA and Belgium. Fifteen architects in 2009, 255 in 2058 – an international network of architects from every continent is being created. They bear witness to the width and the complexity of the global ecological challenge through the diversity of their architecture that is anchored in territories, cultures, societies that sometimes are miles apart. However, they are united by their quest for an architecture that stands in the frontline of the new sustainable world, on its four pillars – social, economic, ecological and cultural. They have responded enthusiastically to the Prize’s partners’ initiative to testify, build, defend an ethic of architecture. SEINE AVAL, AN AVANT-GARDE AREA, IN PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE By 2058, the buildings erected in each of the 51 Seine Aval communities participating in this project will together form a Collection Manifeste, an open-air museum of sustainable projects for the first half of the 21st century. GLOBAL AWARD FOR SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE, THIRD EDITION The 5 architects chosen by the scientific committee in 2009 are as diverse in origin as in the first two years, since they come from three continents – Africa, Asia and Europe. After looking at the work of architects from around the world, the scientific committee has nominated: • Thomas Herzog - Germany • Sami Rintala – Norway • Diébédo Francis Kéré - Burkina Faso and Germany • Bijoy Jain, Studio Mumbaï - India • Patrick Bouchain et Loïc Julienne – France 4 THOMAS HERZOG, MUNICH, GERMANY Thomas Herzog works in Munich, where he was born in 1941. He is considered one of the founders of bioclimatic architecture, both as a practitioner and teacher, having spent a large part of his life on this task in Europe, in the US and more recently in China. This committed militant of solar energy is also an expert heavily involved in international action on behalf of ecological architecture. Thomas Herzog studied architecture in Munich in the early 1960s. His quest for an alternative architecture began in the 70s, when he chose inflatable structures as the subject of his doctoral thesis. This was a subject that excited a whole post- 1968 or – if one prefers – pre-ecological generation, in London with Archigram, in France with J.P. Jungmann and A. Stinco’s Utopie group, in Germany with Hans-Walter Müller. The essence of inflatable architecture is to be nomadic, temporary, light and easy to install: an early version of “don’t touch earth” … In 1976, Thomas Herzog published a manual of “pneumatic construction using membranes and air”,* which became a global model in the field, reflecting his vocation as a teacher and his taste for invention and technology. Thomas Herzog founded his practice in 1971. He is one of the pioneers of the theory and application of solar energy, first with houses and then, in short order, with larger buildings, like the student residences in Windberg. He has designed numerous housing schemes in Germany and Austria. He has developed what amounts to a typology of collective solar housing, with comprehensive constructional systems and units designed to take maximum advantage of the sun and, more broadly, of climatic conditions. Whilst he likes wood, and uses it masterfully, Thomas Herzog is an architect of steel and glass, which he uses to design architecture on a large scale, giving a different view of ecology than the typical alpine school image. Thomas Herzog’s bioclimatic design is the architecture of a big industrial nation. It is first of all profoundly urban: the eco-constructional solutions he proposes are appropriate for industrial or economic schemes, and therefore able to “come into the city”** and even the metropolis. The new pavilions of the Hanover Fair, built in 1996 and 2000, and the Wilkhahn factories, are examples of such integration. It is also founded on German industrial culture – R&D investment is constant and pre-eminent in the process. Thomas Herzog has always worked on a cluster model, in Germany with the laboratories of the Munich Technical University and the technical offices of companies, abroad in partnership with institutes. As an expert in his field, he also heads research and development programmes for the EU.

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