TWO TECHNIQUES OF DESCRIPTION AND ONE MODEL OF REPRESENTATION

Lecture by Pascal Amphoux (Switzerland) within the Frame of Into the city, into the Territory, IKA Lecture Series Summer Term 2015, curated by Lisa Schmidt-Colinet, Platform Geography, Cities, Landscapes.

(Lecture in French language and will be translated in German)
The lecture series will focus on the question of representation and description of landscape, territory and the city. At what point does the description through drawings and other media become a project on its own?

The architect and geographer Pascal Amphoux researches since many years on the soundscape of the urban realm. Starting with accoustic samples, taken from a repertoir of sound recordings in urban public space, the lecture will introduce his methodological approach, pointing out its richness in theory and practice. Amphoux will speak about one representation model, the so-called EPM Modell » Environnement – Environment Milieu – Milieu Paysage – Landscape «, and two tools of sonic description of territory and urban landscape (the sonic effect, the qualitative criteria).

In the tension between those three auditive perspectives (better : modes of listening ?), it will be explained how the techniques operate as tools of conception, and how they allow to create an operative space between an analytical and a projective approach.

Pascal Amphoux is an architect and geographer. He is professor of architecture at the l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture in Nantes, France. He is founder and director of Contrepoint, Projets urbains in Lausanne, a consulting office for architectural, urban and/or environmental projects. He is researcher at CRESSON, the Centre for research on sonic space & urban environment, located at the Graduate School of Architecture in Grenoble. Additionally Amphoux is part of the scientific committee of Europan and member of several other European institutions. Amphoux has published numerous scientific books and articles dealing with the sonic environment and the urban realm, focusing on the relationship between practical experience, landscape aesthetics and the methods of social science.

For many years the various discourses on landscape urbanism have called for the dissolution of the dividing line between the city as densely built fabric and the territory as the surrounding landscape – promoting an understanding of our living environment as a continuous milieu. Movements have developed in two directions: Into the city, as constructed artificial nature, as buildings evoking land formations or as intense verdure overgrowing the city fabric. Into the territory, as projects of extensive mapping describing the environment and it’s geological, hydrological or biological phenomena in order to reveal potentials of the site and to cautiously integrate human settlements and infrastructure into the natural habitat. At the same time, European cities like Vienna seek to further densify the existing city fabric while looking for new strategies for spaces to breath. Yet they continue to understand the relationship of buildings and open space as binary conditions in opposition.

The forthcoming Institute for Art and Architecture lecture series continues the exploration of the relationship between city and landscape, focusing on the role of descriptions and representations in our understanding of territories and the urban realm.

The public lecture series at the Institute for Art and Architecture is the space were international speakers, students and teachers together with the Viennese public can explore and discuss specific topics in the field of art, architecture and urbanism, this summer term presented from the view of Geography, Landscapes, Cities.

Sponsored by Waagner Biro

11.05.2015
Pascal Amphoux (Switzerland)

08.06.2015
Marie-Françoise Plissart, photographer and filmmaker (Belgium)

22.06.2015
Paola Viganò, architect and urbanist (Italy)

More information at Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien