James Taylor-Foster
Selected writing 2015 – 2022
  • About
  • Category
  • Title
  • Publication
  • Year
  • Curatorial
  • In Therapy
  • 2016
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2022
  • In Therapy

In Therapy: Nordic Countries Face to Face positioned the Nordic Pavilion, an exhibition hall designed by the Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn for the 1962 Biennale, as a civic extension of the giardini. The central installation of the exhibition—a truncated step-pyramid, or ziggurat, built with pine and using traditional Swedish wood construction techniques—attempted to frame the charged narrative of the pavilion by way of radical spatial occupation, as an inhabitable display, and through the temporary insertion of a profile amphitheatre.



Fig 1. Sketch from memory by Gabor Gallov (2016)

Tectonic Play

Seeking to distance itself from the historic weight of the space by way of tectonic play, the exhibition—displayed on paper and through film—offered an impression of the state of contemporary built Nordic architecture across a nine year timespan (between 2008 and 2016). Here fundamental questions were raised as simple provocations: How has Nordic architecture (Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish) developed in recent years? Which threads tie them together and what unifying direction, if any, might be discerned?



Nordic Pavilion in Venice by Sverre Fehn. Photo: Åke E:son Lindman
Fig 2. The Nordic Pavilion by Sverre Fehn, 1962 (Åke E:son Lindman)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 3. In Therapy seen from the piazza of the Giardini della Biennale (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)


Inhabitable Display

In Therapy sought not to demand visitors’ full attention as much as it did not seek to deliver its message all at once. In the context of the Biennale, the project aspired to deflect the monotony of the archetypal ‘stand-and-look’ show by creating a clearing amid the congestion; a space in which visitors were invited to pause, absorb, and reflect on the material gathered and the voices convened.

The ‘ziggurat’, formed and engineered by Marge Arkitekter (Stockholm) as an interpretive gesture of Fehn’s design, behaved as an urban artefact as well as a display; an inhabitable installation and an invitation for investigation. It was felt that architecture, at least in the form and quantity that had been convened, would best be experienced in a state of distraction.



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 4. The steps of the ziggurat mirrored the spatial tectonics of the pavilion, reflecting the dimensions of the existing staircase (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 5. The exhibition expanded the threshold of the pavilion, bleeding into the giardini (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

State of Impressions

The steps of the ‘ziggurat’ held responses to an open call that had invited architecture practices from around the world to submit built projects they had realised in the Nordic region between 2008 and 2016. Each submission was self-categorised as Foundational (architecture that cares for society’s basic needs, and presented in red), related to Belonging (architecture which enacts public programs and creates public spaces, enabling people to become citizens, presented in green), or in a state of Recognition (architecture positioned to appreciate and reflect upon the values of Nordic society, presented in blue). Each practice was invited to indicate how the project has (or, indeed, has not) contributed to the present condition of Finnish, Norwegian, or Swedish society.

This tripartite classification represented an interpretative take on the structure of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1954), a theorised system outlining the basic and complex motivational ‘needs’ representing the progress of the individual in society. Maslow described the pinnacle of the hierarchy, which he diagrammed as a pyramid, as ‘self-actualisation’ – the realisation of one’s full potential.



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 6. Inhabitable display (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 7. Tectonic reflections (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

Occupation

A central impetus behind In Therapy was in the acknowledgment of the ‘ghosts’ of Nordic architecture – those architects, historians, theorists, and educators who have exerted a profound influence on contemporary practice and pedagogy at home and abroad. This exhibition aimed to address an acute challenge faced by Finnish, Norwegians and Swedish architects today (consciously or otherwise): How might a contemporary architectural project exist in a dialogue with its setting when that setting is so charged? How might architecture occupy a legacy while at the same time harnessing it in a contemporary context?



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 8. A new perspective of a familiar friend (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 9. Rooms without walls (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

Face to Face

In Therapy offered a provocation – a collection of installations which presented the breadth of contemporary Nordic architecture, assembled under one roof, in order to set up a framework for conversation and proposition. It positioned Finland, Norway and Sweden—three countries with distinct histories, cultures, and attitudes to design—face to face in the context of the compressed world of the Biennale, interrogating perceptions and preconceptions of Nordic architecture by openly addressing its built manifestation.



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 10. The ziggurat becomes a profile amphitheatre (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 11. An urban bridge between the Viale Trento and the piazza della Giardini (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)





 
Co-Curator David Basulto Commissioners ArkDes (Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design), Stockholm; Arkkitehtuurimuseo (Museum of Finnish Architecture), Helsinki; National Museum’s Department of Architecture (Nasjonalmuseet), Oslo for Reporting From The Front (15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia) Project Management Karin Åberg Waern Project Advisors Juulia Kauste, Nina Berre, Eva Madshus Exhibition Design Marge Arkitekter Construction Eckerud Graphic Design MPVK and Lisa Olausson Typesetting Thomas Hirter Sub-Editing Crystal Bennes Key Photography Laurian Ghinitoiu
May 28 — November 27, 2018
Nordic Pavilion,
Giardini della Biennale, Venice
Inauguration speech by Alice Bah Kunke’s (Sweden’s Minister of Culture and Democracy, 2014-’19).

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James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
  • CuratorialI.
  • ProjectsII.
  • PublicationsIII.
  • SpeakingIV.
  • WritingV.
I.Curatorial
  • ✶ WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, London2022
  • ✶ Mira Bergh × Josefin Zachrisson: Utomhusverket2022
  • ✶ The Limits of Our World: LARP and Design2022
  • ✶ Solicited: Proposals2021
  • ✶ Studio Ossidiana: Utomhusverket2021
  • WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, Stockholm2020
  • Architecture Projects: Skeppsbron + Brunnsparken2019
  • Cruising Pavilion: Architecture, Gay Sex, Cruising Culture2019
  • The Craft of Swedish Videogame Design2019
  • Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson; Sigurd Lewerentz – Freestanding2018
  • Space Popular: Value in the Virtual2018
  • You Are Not Alone2017
  • In Therapy2016
  • Keeping Up Appearances2015
II.Projects
  • ASMR, An Exhibition Trailer2022
  • Watch & Chill 2.0: Streaming Senses2022
  • ASMRology2021
  • Plug-in Poesi2020
  • ✶ Interdependence: Stockholm and pandemia2020
  • Future Architecture Rooms2020
  • SOFT GOSSIP2020
  • Mukbang Veneziano2020
  • Körper2019
  • Architecture on Display2018
  • Boxen at ArkDes2018
  • The Stones of Venice: A Kimono2017
  • Misunderstandings (A Reliquary)2016
III.Publications
  • ✶ softspot2021
  • Living on Water2017
  • Elemental Living2016
  • People, Place, Purpose2015
IV.Speaking
  • ✶ Scaffold #612022
  • Salons, The New Architecture School2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: A Bed2022
  • OAT Academy, Curating Architecture2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: An Island2021
  • A Future for Exhibitions2021
  • Future Architecture CEx2020 Focus Talks2020
  • Modevisningar är den flyktigaste formen av arkitektur2018
  • Exhibition Models2017
V.Writing
  • Studio Ossidiana on the Sentimental Scale of the City2022
  • Wang & Söderström: Royal Chambers2022
  • A Strange Sort of Weight2021
  • What’s Mine Is Theirs: an interview with Max Lamb2020
  • ✶ Screen Glow Sedation2020
  • No Time to Stand and Stare2020
  • On Norra Tornen2020
  • ✶ Don’t Fear a Snowflake2020
  • In Riga, A Conference On Architecture and Migration2019
  • On Practical Futurology2019
  • Foreword: On the Manifesto2019
  • Making Believe with Charlap Hyman & Herrero2019
  • ✶ To Speak As If In Capital Letters2019
  • Baltoscandia: A Complex Utopia2018
  • ✶ Virgil Abloh, Editor in Brief2018
  • A Weak Monument2018
  • Sigurd Lewerentz: Villa Edstrand2018
  • On the Cruising Pavilion2018
  • A Diary of Virgil Abloh’s First Louis Vuitton Show2018
  • ✶ The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied.2018
  • Concrete Mountain2017
  • ✶ On Liquid Modernity2017
  • ✶ #003399, #FFCC00; The Meaning of a Flag2017
  • Pillars of Society: “Jantelagen”2017
  • Exhibiting the Postmodern2017
  • Future Architecture and the Idea of Europe2017
  • Domains of Influence2017
  • Ingress: Black Rock City2017
  • In Dialogue With Gravity2017
  • Rem, Redacted2016
  • Media States, Or The State of Media2016
  • A Piece of England to Call One’s Own2016
  • Upon This Rock (I Will Build My Church)2016
  • The Design of the Species2016
  • Venice Isn’t Sinking, It’s Flooding2016
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2022
Curatorial
  • In Therapy 2016
  • for the 15th Biennale Architettura di Venezia ("Reporting From The Front") with David Basulto; ArkDes (Sweden), Arkkitehtuurimuseo (Finland), Nasjonalmuseet (Norway)
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In Therapy: Nordic Countries Face to Face positioned the Nordic Pavilion, an exhibition hall designed by the Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn for the 1962 Biennale, as a civic extension of the giardini. The central installation of the exhibition—a truncated step-pyramid, or ziggurat, built with pine and using traditional Swedish wood construction techniques—attempted to frame the charged narrative of the pavilion by way of radical spatial occupation, as an inhabitable display, and through the temporary insertion of a profile amphitheatre.



Fig 1. Sketch from memory by Gabor Gallov (2016)

Tectonic Play

Seeking to distance itself from the historic weight of the space by way of tectonic play, the exhibition—displayed on paper and through film—offered an impression of the state of contemporary built Nordic architecture across a nine year timespan (between 2008 and 2016). Here fundamental questions were raised as simple provocations: How has Nordic architecture (Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish) developed in recent years? Which threads tie them together and what unifying direction, if any, might be discerned?



Nordic Pavilion in Venice by Sverre Fehn. Photo: Åke E:son Lindman
Fig 2. The Nordic Pavilion by Sverre Fehn, 1962 (Åke E:son Lindman)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 3. In Therapy seen from the piazza of the Giardini della Biennale (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)


Inhabitable Display

In Therapy sought not to demand visitors’ full attention as much as it did not seek to deliver its message all at once. In the context of the Biennale, the project aspired to deflect the monotony of the archetypal ‘stand-and-look’ show by creating a clearing amid the congestion; a space in which visitors were invited to pause, absorb, and reflect on the material gathered and the voices convened.

The ‘ziggurat’, formed and engineered by Marge Arkitekter (Stockholm) as an interpretive gesture of Fehn’s design, behaved as an urban artefact as well as a display; an inhabitable installation and an invitation for investigation. It was felt that architecture, at least in the form and quantity that had been convened, would best be experienced in a state of distraction.



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 4. The steps of the ziggurat mirrored the spatial tectonics of the pavilion, reflecting the dimensions of the existing staircase (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 5. The exhibition expanded the threshold of the pavilion, bleeding into the giardini (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

State of Impressions

The steps of the ‘ziggurat’ held responses to an open call that had invited architecture practices from around the world to submit built projects they had realised in the Nordic region between 2008 and 2016. Each submission was self-categorised as Foundational (architecture that cares for society’s basic needs, and presented in red), related to Belonging (architecture which enacts public programs and creates public spaces, enabling people to become citizens, presented in green), or in a state of Recognition (architecture positioned to appreciate and reflect upon the values of Nordic society, presented in blue). Each practice was invited to indicate how the project has (or, indeed, has not) contributed to the present condition of Finnish, Norwegian, or Swedish society.

This tripartite classification represented an interpretative take on the structure of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1954), a theorised system outlining the basic and complex motivational ‘needs’ representing the progress of the individual in society. Maslow described the pinnacle of the hierarchy, which he diagrammed as a pyramid, as ‘self-actualisation’ – the realisation of one’s full potential.



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 6. Inhabitable display (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 7. Tectonic reflections (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

Occupation

A central impetus behind In Therapy was in the acknowledgment of the ‘ghosts’ of Nordic architecture – those architects, historians, theorists, and educators who have exerted a profound influence on contemporary practice and pedagogy at home and abroad. This exhibition aimed to address an acute challenge faced by Finnish, Norwegians and Swedish architects today (consciously or otherwise): How might a contemporary architectural project exist in a dialogue with its setting when that setting is so charged? How might architecture occupy a legacy while at the same time harnessing it in a contemporary context?



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 8. A new perspective of a familiar friend (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 9. Rooms without walls (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

Face to Face

In Therapy offered a provocation – a collection of installations which presented the breadth of contemporary Nordic architecture, assembled under one roof, in order to set up a framework for conversation and proposition. It positioned Finland, Norway and Sweden—three countries with distinct histories, cultures, and attitudes to design—face to face in the context of the compressed world of the Biennale, interrogating perceptions and preconceptions of Nordic architecture by openly addressing its built manifestation.



'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 10. The ziggurat becomes a profile amphitheatre (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)

'In Therapy' in the Nordic Pavilion in Venice. Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu
Fig 11. An urban bridge between the Viale Trento and the piazza della Giardini (Laurian Ghinitoiu, 2016)





 
Co-Curator David Basulto Commissioners ArkDes (Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design), Stockholm; Arkkitehtuurimuseo (Museum of Finnish Architecture), Helsinki; National Museum’s Department of Architecture (Nasjonalmuseet), Oslo for Reporting From The Front (15th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia) Project Management Karin Åberg Waern Project Advisors Juulia Kauste, Nina Berre, Eva Madshus Exhibition Design Marge Arkitekter Construction Eckerud Graphic Design MPVK and Lisa Olausson Typesetting Thomas Hirter Sub-Editing Crystal Bennes Key Photography Laurian Ghinitoiu
May 28 — November 27, 2018
Nordic Pavilion,
Giardini della Biennale, Venice
Inauguration speech by Alice Bah Kunke’s (Sweden’s Minister of Culture and Democracy, 2014-’19).
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