EXTRA MUROS: Architectures of Delight

Blooming around Johannesburg…

(Drill Hall, Market Photo Workshop, Alliance Française, Roka and 6…)

From 13 November to 12 December 2008

“Extra Muros, Architectures of Delight” is an exhibition originally produced and designed from a catalogue of photographs and criticisms of contemporary architecture, co-ordinated by the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine/Institut Français d’Architecture.

This exhibition has been specifically tailored for a worldwide presentation, focusing on architecture in tune with current urban situations, territorial or programme-related issues that are relevant throughout the world.

Through a critical mass effect, the 40 projects presented say that “good” architecture is not as rare as it seems, and that if we do not see it, surely it is because it is not where we expect it, also because it’s simpler, more modest or simply less preoccupied with its durability than we imagine.

“Extra Muros, Architectures of Delight” gathers exceptional photographs of master architects’ buildings (Jean Nouvel’s Justice Court, in the French city of Nantes, for instance) as well as anonymous constructions that, in the end, make of the exhibition a visual tribute to diversity, freedom, a certain taste for adventure, generosity, integrity, lightness and forms of enchantment.

With the intention of proposing a new and fresh look at architectural delights, the exhibition will be presented for free (of course!) in different locations of Johannesburg.

The Drill Hall and the Market Photo Workshop, in Town; the Alliance Française, in Parkview; Six Bar, in Melville; Roka Lounge Bar, in Millpark, will each host “a piece” of Extra Muros, giving the public an opportunity to look differently on these different areas and, at the same time, each stopover affording the public a new playful mobility within Joburg’s architectural delights.

“Extra Muros, architectures of Delight” will be extended to the academic field with an exceptional one-week architecture workshop entitled “EUNIC Architecture Studio 2008”, co-ordinated by the French Institute on behalf of the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC).

Taking place between the 17th and 22nd of November at the Drill Hall, “EUNIC Architecture Studio 2008” will invite a panel of international architects and “thinkers of the environment” to work around the idea of low-cost housing along with Gauteng’s architecture students and young professionals.