Living Architecture Exhibition at Vargas Museum

UP Vargas Museum, Architecture Steiner, Citydesigner, and Iona Stichting Foundation present Living Architecture Exhibition on 3 February, Saturday, 5pm, at the 1F Galleries of the museum.

Curated by Pieter van der Ree, Living Architecture Exhibition is intended to raise awareness on the relationship between architecture and the natural, social and cultural life which it is part of. By showcasing various projects from four phases within the search for “Living Architecture” (turn of the 19^th century up to the present time), and engaging the audiences with two outdoor installations by Filipino artists Junyee and Indy Paredes at the Vargas Museum, Living Architecture Exhibition aims to adhere to a more sustainable and life-oriented approach to architecture.

Van der Ree argues, “Our living environment is increasingly determined by manmade artefacts like buildings, machines and electronic devices. This has a profound influence on our lives, our wellbeing, social relations and cultural values.”

Living Architecture Exhibition runs until 31 March. Exhibition is extended until 7 April 2018.

Workshops and study tours will also be held at the Vargas Museum on 3 February at 3pm before the opening reception. Speakers and workshop leaders include world-leading environmental engineer Patrick Bellew who led the design team of the Gardens by the Bay in Singapore; award-winning Australian architect Gregory Burgess, notable for his organically designed buildings and participatory approach; and Filipino architect Jason Buensalido, whose experimental designs seek to contemporize the bahay kubo.

The exhibition is part of the Artkitektura Festival 2018.

Artkitektura 2018 is a Festival of Architecture and the Arts celebrating holistic approaches to architecture and the built environment. Festival Director Sarri Tapales said the purpose of the festival is for world-leading designers and creative thinkers to engage the public and share ideas on design process, heritage, urban renewal, and life enhancing architecture. Tapales states, “Architecture affects us all, whether we are conscious of it or not, and the creation of healthier, more liveable cities is our collective responsibility.” This year’s theme Movement and Flow in the Built Environment will be explored through exhibitions, talks, workshops, artistic presentations and study tours.

Pieter van der Ree (b. 1958, Rotterdam) studied architecture at the Technical University in Delft in the Netherlands. Since 1990, he has been working as an architect in the field of ecological building and organic architecture. In 2000, he wrote a book on Organic Architecture and in 2003, he composed a travelling exhibition on the same topic that had venues in Amsterdam, Berlin, Tampere (Finland), Liege (Belgium), Tallinn (Estonia) and Dornach (Switzerland). Since 2005, he is professor for organic architecture at the Alanus Hochschule near Bonn (Germany). His special focus is on the relation between man and architecture.

For more information, please contact Vargas Museum at (+632) 981-8500 loc. 4024 (UP trunkline), (+632) 928-1925 (fax) or send an email to vargasmuseum@gmail.com. You may also check our website at http://vargasmuseum.upd.edu.ph, Facebook via https://fb.me/vargasmuseum.upd and Twitter via @UPVargasMuseum for updates.