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Semester III
ON IRONY

Session 23
15.10.2020
Location: Parkhaus West  P-West
Förrlibuckstrasse 151
8005 Zürich


SHORT CUTS ON IRONY



Bessire Winter, SHORT CUTS ON IRONY. A speculative story of irony in architecture assembling various authors and projects, 2020.




excerpt from the text
Text Synopsis


Short Cuts on Irony investigates the possibility of an architecture produced by means of irony. As a projectile through the shelves of architectural history it creates new vicinities and relationships between projects hitherto considered far apart. Along its trajectory an overview of possible strategies of irony unfolds, narrated in one cohesive (hi)story.
About the Authors

Céline Bessire established Bessire Winter GmbH together with Matthias Winter in 2019. She studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) and at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and graduated 2013 with distinction at the chair of Adam Caruso. She has previously worked for Made In in Geneva. From 2016-18 she was teaching at the chair of Architecture and Design of Tom Emerson at ETH Zurich. She has been guest critic in several design studios and is co-founder of Delphi, a periodical magazine about architecture. Currently she is lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts, teaching in the Stage Design Programme. 2020 she was awarded the arts promotion award of the canton of Solothurn.

Matthias Winter established Bessire Winter GmbH together with Céline Bessire in 2019. He studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) and graduated 2014 with distinction at the chair of Christian Kerez. His master’s thesis project got awarded by the FEB SIA with the 1st Prize in 2015. He has previously worked for Baukuh in Milan and for Made In in Geneva. From 2016-18 he was teaching at the chair of Architecture and Design of Christian Kerez at ETH Zurich. He has been guest critic in several design studios and is co-founder of Delphi, a periodical magazine about architecture. Currently he is lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts, teaching in the Stage Design Programme. 2020 he was awarded the arts promotion award of the canton of Solothurn.

source: Website Bessire Winter
Of course, once it is drawn and built, architecture can both: be and mean at the same time. From the historian’s point of view plenty of irony can be found, deciphered and classified by looking at architectural history. However, as practicing architects and possible stakeholders of this particular history, we are rather interested in the earlier (projected) stage of architecture. So instead of what architecture might be or mean we are observing the means with which architecture comes into being.

Can irony be a productive vehicle to make a project or an agent to create form and space? Can irony be an instrument to make something that is full of sense (sinnvoll)?









photo taken by Tibor Bielicky 




photo taken by Tibor Bielicky




photo taken by Tibor Bielicky