“The assembly means gathering as a group of people with common interest. The assembly means building a whole out of components. As a community and construction, the meeting is the focus of the architectural process.”
Culture Ireland In cooperation with the Artificial is pleased to present the assembly, a multi -sensory installation of curated by Cotter & Naessens architects for the Irish pavilion At the 19th International Biennale of the Venice Architecture.
Assembly If the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration process between Cotter & Naessens's architects, Sound Artist David StallingArchitect and poet Michelle DeleaCurator People noseand wooden workers Alan Meredith. Inspired by the innovative political model of the citizens' meeting, the design will be a multi -sensory installation that offers visitors a sound landscape that needs to be inhabited and a space can be heard.
In 2016 Ireland founded its first citizens' meeting. 99 Demographically representative Irish residents are brought together to conscious topics that extend from equality to marriage to the loss of biological diversity and jointly recommend recommendations for the implementation by the government. This ongoing political experiment was promoted as an innovative form of participatory democracy, which is intended to bring the ordinary “citizen” closer to the governance processes. Assembly asks how architecture this political experiment can contribute to this and can learn from it. The pavilion presents a speculative prototype for a structure to facilitate non-hierarchical communication between strangers. His concept and structure were informed by spatial typologies of the political and social assembly from Ireland and abroad, including choir stands, parliaments and cattle.
Functionally and poetically, the pavilion reflects assembly as a product and process process. Using old, renewable materials, skills and collaborative wisdom, Assembly Was handmade by Irish beeches and seasoned by woodworker Alan Meredith and will be a carpet from Ceadogán Rugmakers with a carpet to welcome visitors in his interior. A choir of sound boxes that are integrated into its structure provides a fragment of a spatial and polyphonic composition, which is informed by the Venetian tradition of Cori Spezzati. The audio composition by Michelle Delea and David Stalling contains music, poetry, interviews with the designers and participants of the citizens' meeting as well as recordings that reflectively document their own production of the structure.
Designed as a resonant instrument Assembly Only fully lively if they are inhabited by humans and add another, endlessly plural layer of the sound. His structure is also encouraged by the experiences and answers of its visitors.
“Our goal is architecture to work together with other forms of crafts and knowledge – from woodwork, textiles, poetry, art and music to ecological and political – to create a rich sensory environment that promotes awareness of ourselves and other beings. Assembly It is about bringing people together in a room who stands out as individuals as individuals, each of the perspectives of their own stories lived and the potential to imagine new types of collecting, listening and communication. “
– Louise Cotter, Cotter & Naessens architects
Ireland in Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in cooperation with the Arts Council of Ireland. The Arts Council supports the national assembly in 2026.
With the support of: Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, City Councilor of Dublin, Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Laois County Council | Creative Ireland Laois, Jacobs Engineering, Cork Center for Architectural Education, Henry J Lyons and United Hardware; and technical support from Ceadogán carpets, Punch Consulting Engineers, Iguzzini, Innosonix.
Cotter & Naessens have been an architecture and design studio in Cork City since 2001 and were founded by Louise Cotter and David Naessens. Your work focuses on public projects and is informed by design research, through teaching and design competitions, especially Dlrlexicon in Dun Laoghaire, and finally the Focas Research Institute, Technical University Dublin. Cotter & Naessens were one of 16 practices in which they could participate Close encountersThat was a commission for the Biennale Archittentura 2018, Freespacecurated by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. Louise Cotter and David Naessens also took part in one of the first international architectural exhibition of the Venice Biennale, which was curated by Aldo Rossi in 1985. The work of the practice was nominated twice for the EU Mies Award, and in 2016 Dlllexicon received the Riba Prize for International Excellence as well as the Riai Awards for the best public building and the best cultural construction in 2015.