The exhibition RE:CYCLE THE SPACE! has been organized in collaboration with the mentors and students of Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture. Eighteen design studios will present 34 seminar and diploma thesis projects completed during the 2012/13 semester. All thesis works engage very actual  architectural theme of restoration and renovation. The selection of the projects – a maximum of 3 per design studio – were made by the studio mentors and critics. The projects show the rigor, quality and excellence of studies at the Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture as well as the continuation of Jože Plecnik's and Edvar Ravnikar's tradition.

Design studios at the exhibition

AZMAN, BEGOVC, CERPES, DESMAN, DEU, ETTLINGER, FIKFAK, FLORIJANCIC, GABRIJELCIC, GLAZAR, JEZA, KOBE, KOZELJ, KRSEC, PEROVIC, SADAR, VODOPIVEC, ZOREC

DESIGN STUDIOS

A design studio or an atelier, sometimes also called the studio, today known as the course on composition and design, remains the central theme of the study program at the Faculty of Architecture in Ljubljana. During such courses a direct contact is established between the students and the professors on a daily basis, and so a wealth of forms, as well as working and teaching methods develops. Annual exhibitions are always a public confrontation and a form of competition which stimulate both the educators and the students alike, thus contributing to an even greater quality of work at the Faculty. Following in the footsteps of notable predecessors, such as Plečnik, Vurnik , Ravnikar and Mihevc , the modern-day design studio holders are all widely renowned architects and educators, both in the realms of public realizations as well as internationally acknowledged realizations. Each of them represents a specific ‘school within the school’, and embodies a unique attitude towards the profession and the subject matter. They offer a wide selection and rich diversity of subject matter, thus enabling the students to choose an academic environment closest to their professional, ethical and personal attitude. The design studio is a place where technical skills meet theoretically sociological knowledge and professional expertise, which all unite in project solutions which surpass a merely mechanical composition of elements but also extend into the realm of artistic creation and spatial poetics.

In contrast to the former study program, in which the student encountered the design studio and the concept of composition only in the third year of studies, the course is now organized from the first year onwards. This is undoubtedly an important conceptual shift which is already reflected in a greater creativity, artistic sensibility and ethical awareness of our graduates.

In the past the range of topics was too diverse, which is why the design studio program is now conceptually more rounded and takes into account the increasing complexity of study tasks. Students attend at least one of the annually organized workshops focusing on urban planning and architecture, where they experience actual physical and social environment with their specific problems. With this they build awareness that a well-organized and life-inspiring place is an important economic category. At the same time they learn that creating an atmosphere is one of the key tasks of the architect.

In his lecture on musical semantics, held at Harvard University, the famous American composer, pianist and conductor, Leonard Bernstein said that music, as an art form, has a great expressive power, and he further stressed that we humans possess an ability to respond to it in a way that the artist did not anticipate. Music delivers its message with the help of symbols through a metaphorical language and gives voice to feelings existing beyond the actual and the tangible. In doing so, the metaphor is the source of its narrative potency, just as in poetry. Metaphor in music is, as Bernstein cites Kant, “Das Ding an sich” or, a thing-in-itself, as a reality outside of our conscious reality, an extra-conscious existence of sorts. In using a metaphor we can come closest to the truth. A metaphor has a difficult task of denominating something which otherwise could not be explained by words, a feeling of one’s inner world. To further develop the above thoughts, we can postulate that the aim of architecture as an art form is to translate the metaphorical and the intangible world into the real world, which is at the same time a world of poetical forms. This exhibition by our young colleagues is the best proof of it.

prof. Peter Gabrijelcic, dean of Faculty of Architecture University of Ljubljana

Organizer_Dessa gallery, Ljubljana

Co_organizer_Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana, Association of Architects of Ljubljana

Curators_Maja Ivanič, Anja Planišček, Mitja Zorc, Katarina Čakš and mentors of Design studios at Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture

Catalogue design_Nena Gabrovec