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Architecture roadshow starts in Vancouver

August 24th, 2009 · 5 Comments

I got this interesting but utterly mystifying news release last week about an architecture roadshow that is going to be put on across Canada, starting with Vancouver.

I say mystifying because I can’t quite imagine what it is from the description. I think I must have failed Highly Conceptual Thinking in a previous life.

Anyway, I’m sure some of my brilliant readers out there will have more intelligent thoughts than I do about what this might mean. Here you go.

Calgary, Alberta – ARCHIPROP EXPRESS, nine architects
and designers to embark on a cross-Canada exhibition tour
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Taking place September 23 to October 2, 2009, The Roadshow: Architectural Landscapes of Canada is a series of linked, broad-based national events that focus architectural discourse in Canada at the level of the public, the profession, and the schools of architecture. Born in part from a persistent inability to define, The Roadshow is a rethinking of the traditional conception of a singular notion of “Canadian Architecture.” Rather than creating an almost instantly outdated definition, The Roadshow is conceived as an open and interactive process that seeks to explore a moment in Canadian architecture. By attempting to collapse the vast distances between place, people and practice, The Roadshow creates the potential for a significant, if temporary, point of shared consciousness. Ultimately the goal of The Roadshow is to promote and facilitate an emergent and evolving discussion regarding contemporary architecture and design in Canada.
Beginning in Vancouver, The Roadshow brings together nine critical architects and designers from across Canada. This group will travel and lecture together, delivering rapid fire public presentations of their work at eight Canadian schools of architecture. The Roadshow is conceived of as one tour/one event, with each venue building momentum for the next. At every stop, each of the participating architects and designers will have ten minutes to present one project and articulate this project’s engagement within a consistent framework around which intentionality and meaning have emerged. The goal is to allow for a broadening of understanding of the points of confluence and difference between various forms of architectural practice in Canada. All events are free and open to the public.
Participanting architects and designers include: Battersby Howat, The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative, DIN Projects, PLANT architect inc., Philip Beesley Architect, Atelier In Situ, Atelier Big City, Atelier TAG, and Roger Mullin.
All nine architects and designers will travel on a bus across Canada, from Vancouver to Halifax. The bus will also transport The Roadshow’s Pneumatic Amplifier, a massive inflatable projection device that will act as an architectural propaganda machine. The Pneumatic Amplifier has audio and visual capacity “built-in” so that each event can be facilitated in the most public and provocative manner possible. During the travel time between venues, the nine architects and designers will investigate, discuss and critique the discipline of contemporary architecture in Canada. These informal discussions along with the changing Canadian landscape and the public events will be recorded by a professional videographer.
After The Roadshow, the content exhibited and developed during the process will be used as the basis for a publication, website and film, and ultimately curated into a travelling national exhibition that will retrace The Roadshow’s movement across the country. This exhibition will take place in public galleries and exhibition facilities across Canada and will include videos/transcripts of discussion between the architects and designers, reflection by the architects and designers on the process and layering of meaning developed through the process, the drawings, models, and images displayed during the roadshow and others, curated specifically for the exhibition.
Committed to promoting architecture and design in Canada, The Marc Boutin Architectural Collaborative Inc. is a research-based critical practice, informed by the application of intense design methodologies to diverse conceptual and physical contexts. The work in the studio is characterised by an inter-disciplinary approach to design, seeking value that can only be achieved through the synthesis of art, architecture, urban design, landscape architecture and exhibition design. The Calgary-based studio explores an architecture of direct experience, pursuing the active participation of the user, the engagement of the social landscape, and appealing to all five senses through the orchestration of those elements that are central to architecture’s presence: light, structure, material and technique. For additional information about The Roadshow, as well as updates and posts during the tour, visit www.the-roadshow.tumblr.com or contact .
The Roadshow has been made possible through the generous support of The Canada Council for the Arts.

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  • cold water

    The release reminds me of one of those Google translations of websites in a different language.

  • David

    I was similarly confused, until the very end:
    “The Roadshow has been made possible through the generous support of The Canada Council for the Arts.”
    Only in Canada ‘eh’ would the public purse sponsor be tapped for such an esoteric exercise. No question what these guys are smoking on the bus.

  • Joe Just Joe

    I will probably take heat for this, but that’s fine as I’m somewhate hidden due to my username.
    This whole thing sounds like a taxpayer funded programming event. The people involved are not well-knowns and due to the current economy they probably don’t have any work in their field. This whole thing just smells of something to do to kill down time while getting to travel across the country. Anyone know if this is recieving government dollars?

  • Frothingham

    joe. are you serious?? it’s a tax-funded goon show!

    Source of Satire: Canada Council for the Arts.

    You gotta love and admire their chutzpah!

    ( p.s. Rick Mercer could have a whole season worth of material from this one roadshow )

  • jaymac

    I thought Rick Mercer had written the press release! One wonders why some architects feel the need to engage in abstract nebulous writing rather than let their work speak for itself. Maybe the answer is obvious!