Spaces of Production
Nikolaus Hirsch, Philipp Misselwitz, Markus Miessen, Matthias Görlich
„Spaces of Production“ is a study that conceptualizes, tests, and practically applies the spatial strategy for the European Kunsthalle. The investigation does not result from purely theoretical, conceptual considerations but is rather the result of the activities incorporated into the European Kunsthalle’s founding phases’ two-year work practice from 2005 to 2007. The spatial strategy for the European Kunsthalle is therefore the direct result of applied research - an iterative investigation informed by resonances between theory and practice.
The European Kunsthalle’s own physical-spatial configuration during the founding phase - an institution so far without public facade or permanent exhibition space - appears as both a constraint and a chance. By comparing this condition to contemporary institutional practice in Europe, the combination of „production office“ and the temporary, „instable“ appropriation of found spaces for programmatic work emerges as a model with many precedents and opens up a field of possibilities to rethink the established „stable“ model of a Kunsthalle. The investigation of the bipolar concepts of „stability“ and „instability“, their reciprocal advantages and disadvantages in relation to art institutions are the driving concept behind the study.
Both concepts offer intrinsic possibilities. Highly controlled environments - closed and neutral interiors within a stable architectural structure - guarantee the autonomy of both the program and the social structure of the institution. Variants of use stand in direct relation to the intrinsic possibilities of architectural elements such as wall, ceiling and floor. Spatially unstable institutions, on the other hand, promise a fusion with their urban everyday surroundings. They are defined by flexible and dynamic borders. In contrast to the architectural strategies of stable institutions, the „material strategy“ consists here of various rhythms of visual protection and exposure, speed and slowness, noise and silence.
The approach developed by „Spaces of Production“ attempts to constructively re-think ideas of „stability“ and „instability“ and, in doing so, propose a specific strategy for the European Kunsthalle that positions it within a local, regional, national and international contemporary discourse. Applied to the specific situation in Cologne, Nikolaus Hirsch, Philipp Misselwitz, Markus Miessen, and Matthias Görlich have developed three spatial strategies: an unstable configuration, a stable strategy as well as a model that consolidates the potentials of both variants towards a, albeit slowly, growing institution.
