Abstract, 200 words max, 10th of December
Final submission, 1000 words max, 14th of January

Please send your texts to: submission@conditionsmagazine.com

In issue # 11/12: Possible Greenland credits for the pictures on page 156-159 are incorrect. The first two should be “Inuk Silis Høegh, *Toppen af Isbjerg*, 2009, photos by Nordatlantens Brygge” and the second two should be “Inuk Silis Høegh and Asmund Havsteen-Mikkelsen, *Melting Barricades*, 2004, photos by Jon Larsen/Nordatlantens Brygge”. The editors of CONDITIONS are sorry about this unfortunate happening.

Once upon a time, people compared with their neighbors. Your neighbor was your point of reference and thus the most desirable object of gossip and eavesdropping. Not so anymore. In the world of global networking, you are driven by ambition to compare yourself with the most clever or world-renowned exponents of your trade. Even a critique, satire or parody of the star-system of architecture is an affirmation of its hegemony. Who doesn’t want to be the object of architecture gossip? After all, it’s giving the “stars” more attention, no matter how critical the original intention was. For addicts of gossip, all news is good news, the worst thing is silence, and even a well mediated “scandal” can actually promote your career.

The current issue of CONDITIONS investigates the function of gossip in architecture. Gossip has always been around in architecture as one of the oldest ways of sharing, maneuvering and convincing. But how does it manifest itself today within the instant culture of internet and social media? What is the role of gossip in contemporary networking? Has the logic of gossip and instant gratification also penetrated what we used to call architectural critique?

Today in architecture, as in other fields of culture, professional criticism is gradually replaced by the like/dislike discourse and gossip of social media. Are the fall of criticism and the triumph of amateurism signaling a new function to gossip? On the one hand, it has the possibility of turning every participant into a creator, blurring the line between the producer and the consumer. This we see more clearly in other cultural fields, as in music where production has become simpler and everybody can create their own music and find an audience. The dependency on labels and expensive studio equipment is waning. In architecture, this has not yet happened to the production side of the business, but certainly the evaluation of architecture has witnessed a rise in amateurism and gossip. It is still an open question whether this represents an opening up of the field, building collective intelligence, or if it is reducing all discussions into short attention span one-liners.

The retweeting act, or passing along of gossip, is such a big part of architectural culture these days. The risks of being the first one to voice an opinion, is replaced by a viral building up of a “collective opinion.” That’s what gossip has always done, building up a sense of community among the “people who know.” This has implications far beyond the social media world. Decision makers, governments, architecture competitions are not resistant to the effects of gossip in the form of viral marketing. Talk is cheap, as they say, but in this case, it works.

With the Venice Architecture Biennale again approaching, we must reopen the discourse on the festival character of architecture in the international scene. Never have there been so many venues for the celebration of architecture, and most are following the gossip-strategy of biennales and triennales, focusing on personal and national representation at regular intervals, rather than as communication of actual content and messages as the need arise. The national chambers of architecture support this trend by clinging to the nation state and its starchitect citizens as the prime focus of identity on the festival grounds of architecture.

The jungle telegraph of architecture moves fast. The constant stream of gossip is a far more effective tool for moving out of local differences and peculiarities to a global “movement” than any other organizational form like the CIAM(s) of the past. Architects today are not organized by common agendas, but are more united and connected than ever through social and information media. Gossip, in absentia of any pronounced agenda beyond the urge to be connected, updated and influential, still is, for better or worse, the closest thing we have to an international “movement” in architecture today, transgressing the biased views of national interest, organizations and the egos of individual starchitects.

Enjoy the issue, we hope you will find here some new gossip, and see you in Venice!

THE EDITORS

Joana, Anders and Tor Inge

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LECTURES BY THE EXHIBITION CURATORS:

24 May 12:00 – 15:00

Location: Central House of Artists, Moscow. Krimskij Val. 10

Organiser: PROJECT BALTIA magazine

Partner: Martela, Edsbyn

With the support of: Nordic Culture Point

Invited guest curators from Norway, Finland, Sweden and Estonia will describe and display architecture projects from leading Nordic architecture studios. The projects are choosen as representatives of phenomena that answers the question of what a Nordic identity is today.

Conditions Magazine will present at 13:50-14:25:

“LUXURIOUS MODESTY” – NORWEGIAN ARCHITECTURE

Anders Melsom, editor of Conditions magazine, Norway

Traditional Nordic values of modesty, intimacy and closeness to nature are still strong components of Norwegian architectural identity, but are increasingly in schism with the oil-fuelled rise in prosperity, consumption and luxury. The Discreet Charm of the Petrocracy is challenged and confronted in various ways by the selected small projects of different typologies, adapting contemporary developments in architecture and society to update the Nordic identity.

Projects by Snøhetta, Jensen&Skodvin, Brendeland & Kristoffersen, Studio Fredrik Lund and TYIN tegnestue architects will be presented.

WELCOME!

For more information please visit www.projectbaltia.com

Contact: info@projectbaltia.com

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The Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious venues for the exchange of ideas within architectural society. Issue #11/12 will be a special edition of CONDITIONS Magazine dedicated to the challenges facing the arctic region as a whole, with a focus on Greenland in particular. Approved material will be part of the official catalogue of this year’s Danish/Greenlandic contribution to the Venice Biennale.

POSSIBLE GREENLAND

“Possible Greenland will focus on a Greenland that is currently the centre of a development where the emergence of new natural resources, climate changes, new industries and geological research providing brand new knowledge on the origin of the world, all lead to new and exciting opportunities.” (http://english.dac.dk/visArtikel.uk.asp?artikelID=7408)

Where to POSITION?

We invite all contributors to reflect upon how Greenland and the arctic region is being re-positioned. The historical and current migration of people in the arctic indicates that we need to understand the region as a far more complex entity than a compilation of national states with national borders. Many different cultural groups transgress these imposed national borders and represent a new, “floating” world-society. At the same time, the Arctic region has become a poster child for climate change, a new hot spot in the search for energy and natural resources. The geopolitical context is becoming unstable as conflicting military interests are being apposed? The traditional cultures have undergone radical change. Language, habitation, identity and lifestyles of the arctic are changing. The opening of new seaways and resources is challenging the notions of sovereignty and ownership, both in the periphery and the center of the arctic. In addition, Greenland’s relationship to Denmark is shifting. With the different processes now taking place, Greenland has a unique possibility to reposition on multiple fronts: culturally, economically and politically.

What to SHARE?

Traditionally the Greenlanders were hunter-gatherers, and like other societies of that nature, they depended on exploiting and sharing the available resources. The particularity of Greenland is the extreme nature of the conditions. By borrowing what they needed when you needed it, the society was dynamic, with hardly any private ownership. Over recent years, their society, settlement patterns and governance systems have been forcibly rearranged to align with modern Western perspectives. Subsequently, the modern Greenlanders are facing many challenges similar to those faced by other indigenous cultures in the 20th century. In addition, new and vast resources have now become available and new actors are entering Greenlandic society, its politics and business. The stakes have changed. Natural resources, such as fresh water, oil, gas, minerals and those yet to be discovered under the ice cap and in the ocean may be exploitable. What is a good strategy? How can Greenland avoid being used and instead exploit the exploiters? How could these collective resources be shared in the future? Can the discovery of new resources be the foundation of a new state system?

What to BUILD?

For Greenlanders to be able to take maximum advantage of the shifting conditions, a strong platform must be built. The particular dilemmas of a traditional society facing rapid transformation need to be confronted. Education, infrastructure, policies addressing cultural identity, societal institutions and communities need to be rethought. The visions or scenarios made today might be outdated tomorrow. How can Greenland consider these issues so that it is best prepared for the unknown future? What should Greenland build or rebuild? What are the sustainable strategies to build this future?

SUBMISSION

We are looking for articles, projects, illustrations and material relating directly to these approaches in the context of Greenland, as well as studies exploring similar conditions (World learning from Greenland / Greenland learning from the World). A special issue of CONDITIONS, produced with a guest editorial panel, will serve as catalogue for the exhibition in the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2012. Send your abstracts (maximum 1 page) to submission@conditionsmagazine.com by the 5th of March 2012. Deadline for final submissions will be 13th of April 2012.

Responsible editors for issue #11/12 are CONDITIONS, Terroir and Boris Brorman Jensen

In pre-modern epochs, renewal of practice was always initiated by looking backwards, as a return to the fundamentals. The cult of the new/young first came with modernity. Are young offices still obsessed with the ideas of idols, former employers and teachers? Or are young practices in architecture today considered to be especially innovative? Are they generating new knowledge or just recycling winning formulas? If truly innovative new practices still exist, from what fields of knowledge do they get their input?

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Contents

THE PERFECT ARCHITECT
Interview with Dominique Unathi Xenos

INTERVIEW WINY MAAS, MVRDV
OSLO 27TH OF MAY 2011

HAVE EGO, WILL STRUGGLE
by Antti Nousjoki

MONEY

THE SPECIAL GENERALIST
Interview with Kristian Kreiner

THE ARCHITECT AS DEVELOPER
Interview with Bjørnar Johnsen

TOOLS

POWERTOOLS
Interview with Erik L. Olsen / Transsolar

CONSTRUCTLAB / EXYZT

IS EXTERNAL THERMAL INSULATION GOING TO REVOLUTIONIZE THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE 21ST CENTURY?
by Phillipe Rahm

NEW TECHNOLOGIES / EMERGING FIRMS
Interviews with Marco Vanucci, Marco Verde and Manuel Aust by Scully Beaver-Lynch

PRESCIENCE
by Mitchell Joachim

NEEDS

HYPERCONNECTIONS
Interview with Daniel Dendra

ABOUT U-TT
by Urban Think Tank

NOTES FROM TOHOKU, JAPAN
by Sören Grünert

APEX: RETRACING THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS
by Ole J Bryn

Send your abstracts to submission@conditionsmagazine.com by the 4th of January 2012. Deadline for final submissions is the 1st of March.

Björn Ehrlemark from Conditions will participate in a debate in Stockholm November 12th. The event is a collaboration between San Rocco Architectural Magazine and FFAR forum för arkitektur.

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