Catalogue HOW LONG IS THE LIFE OF A BUILDING?
- Ingel Vaikla
- Tüüne-Kristin Vaikla
Catalogue of the Estonian National Exhibition
13th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia
Editor and Assembler Tüüne-Kristin Vaikla
Graphic Design Aadam Kaarma
Translation into English Peeter Alan Tammisto, Kristopher Rikken
Estonian Language Editor Tiiu Kokla
Photos Ingel Vaikla, Urmo Vaikla, workshop participants, archive
Publisher Estonian Centre of Architecture
Tallinn 2012
© Estonian Centre of Architecture
© Vaikla Studio
Everything that is not used goes to rack and ruin. Estonia’s exhibition project at La Biennale di Venezia deals with how the respectable heritage of modernism is fading away, a process fostered by economic and political conditions. Why are distinguished and acclaimed structures that have functioned for only some twenty or so years being abandoned?
Estonia’s exposition is about relating to time and space–to today’s abandonment of important and unimportant places, yet also to alterations and opportunities of tomorrow…posing the question in Venice: how long is the life of a building? This same theme bears more or less universally on architectural heritage throughout the world. Why is modernistic architecture being abandoned – do their materials and technologies depreciate or is it an escape instead, since people have never liked modernist architecture?
Catalogue HOW LONG IS THE LIFE OF A BUILDING?