The Berlage Institute is an international postgraduate laboratory for education, research and development in the field of architecture, urban planning and landscape design. The institute aims to provide a critical environment where spatial planning issues are studied into depth. Social and cultural phenomena relevant to the metropolis of tomorrow are the central focus.

The dean, Alejandro Zaera Polo, sets the research program, which is aimed at producing a new breed of architectural knowledge and to have a transformative impact both on the built environment and the contemporary architectural culture in Europe. The institute will seek to engage with real urban conditions in collaboration with other institutions and organizations with shared interests. Together with the staff and guest professors the participants work in an intensive laboratory situation; a research attitude central to the spirit and quality of the institute. The institute runs a two-year program of independent thesis research, group work in design studios, masterclasses and seminars. In addition lectures, excursions, exhibitions and competitions shape the program.

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www.berlage-institute.nl

MANIFESTA 5 IN COLLABORATION WITH THE BERLAGE INSTITUTE

The Office of Alternative Urban
Planning (OAUP)

As one programme within the larger Manifesta 5 Biennal, The Office of Alternative Urban Planning (OAUP) is launched on October 30th, 2003 and effectively activates the process of Manifesta 5.

At the initiative of the Manifesta 5 curators in cooperation with the Dean of the Berlage Institute, Alejandro Zaera-Polo, OAUP is part of Berlage’s postgraduate laboratory and reflects the broader curatorial initiative of the biennial.
The programme refers to Manifesta 5 as an instrument to explore the city as a project. In consideration of Donostia - San Sebastian as a privileged social site and catalytic trigger, this proposal turns to the architectonics of the city in order to understand the city as a broader territory. The foreseen partnership between Manifesta 5 and the Berlage Institute, as a collaboration between architects and invited artists, proceeds as one of the trajectories within an interdisciplinary contemporary arts biennial that explores how contemporary art may extend and participate in the language of architecture and urban planning. At the same time, OAUP will reflect the real processes and debates endemic Donostia – San Sebastian and its surroundings. Similarly, the project lends to a conceptualization of various futures of a place without departing from the real factors and forces molding the possible developments of Donostia – San Sebastián and neighbouring cities. This way it aims to approach issues related to alterity, bifurcation, bipolarity, autonomy and fracture.

The Partners: Manifesta 5 European Biennal of Contemporary Art and the Berlage Institute Post Graduate Studio Programme. The studio is organized as a collaboration between the Berlage Institute and Manifesta 5 with logistic support from the City of Donostia-San Sebastián, the Diputación Foral of Gipuzkoa and the Basque Government.

The Office of Alternative Urban Planning falls into the curatorial programme of Manifesta 5. Its participants include an international group of six architects, urban planners, landscape designers enrolled in Berlage’s PhD programme, and artists selected by the Manifesta 5 curatorial team throughout Fall-Winter 2003.

Manifesta 5 Curators: Marta Kuzma and Massimiliano Gioni

Berlage Institute Studio Programme Tutors: Bernard Caché and Sebastián Khourian

Berlage Institute Participant Architects: Veronica Arcos (Chile), Sannah Belzer (Holland), Constanze Hirt (Germany), Olga Skaba (Poland), Claudia Strahl (Germany), Monica Villate (Colombia).

Duration: The Programme will be developed from the time of its presentation on September 30th, 2003 at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam and its presentation on October 30th, 2003 in Donostia - San Sebastian, through until the opening of Manifesta 5 on June 11th, 2004. Four separate research visits by the participating architects to Donostia - San Sebastian will be held throughout this period with the collaboration of the invited artists.

The results of this dialogue will be held during the opening of Manifesta 5.

The Logistics: The Studio programme of architects will be steered by the Berlage Institute with a flexible working group to be created in Donostia - San Sebastián The four separate field trips will be held in October, January, March, and April, with a fifth for the opening of Manifesta 5 in June.

The Office of Alternative Urban Planning will be held at the Manifesta 5 office at Arteleku (Kristobaldegi 14, 20014 Donostia – San Sebastián)

Satellite Progamme: Manifesta 5 is planning to schedule academic programming, lectures, and events in conjunction with the programme to explore issues relating to the architecturalisation of space.