S AM Soft Power
The Brussels Way of Making the City
2024,
Basel / CH, Swiss Architecture Museum
18.10.2024 - 16.03.2024
S AM Schweizer Architekturmuseum
The exhibition 'Soft Power: The Brussels Way of Making the City' traces Belgium's journey to becoming an internationally renowned hotspot for contemporary architecture and urban planning. The show sheds light on the framework conditions and work of bouwmeester maître de architect of Brussels (BMA) that have given rise to a high-quality building culture in Brussels and encouraged a new generation of architects to participate in its urban development.*
In spring 2024 BMA launched a competition for the exhibition, following its own method of catalysing projects in architectural production in Brussels. Aslı Çiçek and her team have won the competition with a proposal which offered several display methods to give an overview of BMA's activities and to focus on 15 selected projects at the same time. After winning the competition Aslı Çiçek's studio closely collaborated with the curators Roxane Legrelle and Andreas Kofler as well as with S AM's team and the graphic designer Jiri Oplatek to sharpen the scenography.
A lightbox with site images, which are taken for each open call organised by BMA, introduces the visitors into Brussels and into the scope of work created by the organisation. This scenographic element, which is inspired by the light table installation ' Visible World' of Swiss artist duo Fischli & Weiss, is complemented with facts about the bouwmeester shared by a video and documents in the first room. The following three-room enfilade has an atmosphere that oscillates between rigidity and looseness, formal and informal. The first two galleries are filled with rigid structures of table displays on three different heights. The appearance of these structures is architectural, their heights allude to the rich topography of Brussels. All tables are turned 10 degrees away from the longitudinal walls, destabilising the linearity of the exhibition spaces. Models, documents, samples are shown on these tables and also on the walls.
The application of colours is implemented to code the themes assigned to project groups. Loosely finished colour stripes on the walls, reacting to architectural elements such as openings, corners indicate the theme project groups belong. Their half-finished nature refers to the work in progress of BMA and to Brussels as a dynamic urban condition. Formally, they create a contrast to the rigid structures of the display tables. A flickering neon that is an element frequently met in the centre of Brussels showing the title of the exhibition hangs on one window and communicates the exhibition to the street scape. The table tops are painted in thematic colours with a glossy finish remind to the asphalt after Belgian rain, reflecting lights and silhouettes. All scenographic elements designed by Çiçek's studio aim to create an interior atmosphere that reflects Brussels; a city whose contrasts are its real quality.
In the last gallery three moving images projected covering three walls alternate per 40 seconds, giving different views of the city. The images concentrate on the context of the exhibited projects, which become almost details to be discovered in the overall imagery. This unfurnished room offers time and space to immerse into Brussels by watching wall covering moving images shot by the Belgian photographer Maxime Delvaux.
Client: Swiss Architecture Museum, bouwmeester maître de architect (BMA Brussels)
Location: Steinenberg 7 CH- 4051 Basel
Curators: Roxane Legrelle, Andreas Kofler
Assistants: Maxime Descheemaecker (execution phase) Olivia de Bree (competition phase)
Intern: Francesca Desantis
Execution: Chloroform BV
Installation, lighting: S AM execution team, led by Sandra Bachmann
Graphic design: Jiri Oplatek / claudiabasel
Photography lightbox: Severin Malaud
Moving images: Maxime Delvaux
Exhibition views: Tom Bissig (2-9, 11), Aslı Çiçek (1, 10)
*: Text extract from S AM's website
