March 12, 2015: Architekturforum Aedes

"We want to look into the future. What do we want? What are the possibilities?" -Beate Engelhorn

It was a chilly Thursday afternoon in Berlin when we arrived at the Aedes Architecture Forum and were greeted by its head curator, Beate Engelhorn. 'Aedes' is Latin and means "a dwelling of the gods, temple, sanctuary, without partitions." Aedes was founded in 1980 and strives to explore and communicate urban planning, landscape architecture, and sustainable urban concepts. They approach this in a way that is highly accessible to the public: they display architecture in a gallery setting. In contrast to a museum, though, Aedes exhibits the work of modern architects and challenges people to see things differently.

On display was "Contemplating Basics", an exhibition of models and photographs developed by an architecture firm based in Beijing. The exhibit presented solutions for small-scale living in a city of millions.

Also on display was "Alps, Architecture, Tourism", an exhibition of new architecture in South Tyrol, Italy.

Beate was very knowledgeable and shared so much of her experience with us. It was wonderful to be exposed to a different way of communicating architecture and design!