Start semester
80 415 OCCAS: Fehn, Venezia 2020
Admission to AHO and successful completion of three years bachelor level studies (180 ECTS).
The course is open for all students on Master level. Since most of the archive material is in Norwegian we will make a prioritization that ensures that a considerable part of the students command a Scandinavian language.
Sverre Fehn’s Nordic Pavilion in Venice (1962) is a modern masterpiece in concrete, and widely acknowledged as the most striking pavilion in Giardini, the Biennale park. Sixty years after its inauguration, its owner Statsbygg is planning comprehensive restoration work. This provides an unique opportunity to investigate the history of the pavilion.
The pavilion poses a number of questions. Why did it become a Nordic collaboration and why was it located at this particular spot in the centre of the biennale area? How do the national pavilions in Venice reflect changing political and judicial contexts since the late nineteenth century? What principles governed Sverre Fehn’s design? In what ways has the structure changed over time and which technological challenges does the slender concrete construction pose? How to restore a modernist monument?
This elective course is research based and a prelude to a probable re-store studio course fall 2019. FTH has extensive experience with both architecture exhibitions and preservation of concrete architecture. During spring 2019 we will document the cultural, political, technological and architectural history of the pavilion.
The 17th Architecture Biennale opens in May 2020, with Norway as the commissioner of the exhibition in the Nordic pavilion. Both the elective course and the studio in 2019 aims at giving specific input to the exhibition, and will result in an international publication on Sverre Fehn and one of his most important work.
The students will acquire skills in finding and interpreting archival material, scholarly methods, exhibition history, curatorial conceptualization, preservation discourses, and in analyzing a building in-depth.
The course is seminar-based, involving lectures, presentations and discussions. The students will work individually with archival material, interviews, and investigations into the structure by writing, drawing and material analysis. They will be assigned specific tasks, and asked to produce a portfolio of their work at the end of the semester.
| Mandatory coursework | Courseworks required | Presence required | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presence required | Required | Participation is mandatory, and a minimum attendance is 80%. |
| Form of assessment | Grouping | Grading scale | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Portfolio assessment (Vurderingsmappe) | Individual | Pass / fail | The students are assessed on the basis of participation as well as the quality of their final work. |