ARRHOV FRICK. URSPRUNG Origine / Origin - an exhibition in the making

15 November 2024 – 2 March 2025
 

The Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio of the Università della Svizzera italiana, is pleased to present "ARRHOV FRICK. URSPRUNG Origine/Origin," promoted by the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture and curated by the Swedish architectural firm Arrhov Frick.
With a rather innovative format, the exhibition in the making will open on 14 November 2024, and will continue to evolve until the winter holiday seasons: a cultural mediation act to explore new ways of thinking/imagining possible projects for modifying living spaces, both collective and private, following principles suggested by new needs and new constraints bound up with the living and the environment.

Throughout the fall of 2024, the Teatro dell’architettura will indeed become the common ground of three simultaneous processes: a design studio, the Fall 2024 semester public lecture series also curated by Arrhov Frick and the exhibition in the making, with the Ursprung as common ground.

As by curator Arrhov Frick:
Ursprung can be the source of a river, an architecture, a thought or fire, oxygen, the sun or the moment before. Both in Swedish and German, the term tells about origin, whether it would be memories, an existing situation, a climatic condition or a circular system.
Ursprung is therefore understood as a platform open to topics that also aim at the recognition of quality to the aspect of the unfinished in architecture, as it opens up further questions to be explored.

THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition path set out on part of the ground floor and first floor of the Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio, marked by several thematic sections, refers to the design research method of the Swedish architecture firm Arrhov Frick. They are accompanied by some large images by the renowned Swedish photographer Mikael Olsson, who has developed a decidedly personal approach in his way of interpreting architecture, namely a re-vision through the mediation of photography.

From September to December 2024, the Teatro dell’architettura will be constantly inhabited and experienced by the students of the Academy of Architecture, joining the Arrhov Frick Design Studio and, week by week, they will set up an archive of projects and a series of 1:1 scale prototypes on display. The students and staff of the Design Studio will also collaborate to host seminars and workshops with guest speakers, including experts from various fields. These events will create a veritable agorà, contributing to this evolving exhibition and intervening in the environmental and spatial conditions of the Teatro dell’architettura Mendrisio itself. The aim is to reactivate the relations between its inside and outside and explore the fundamental principles of building and inhabiting spaces.

ARRHOV FRICK
Curatorship
Johan Arrhov (1979) and Henrik Frick (1977) received their MSc in architecture from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 2007 under the supervision of Professor Ana Betancour, who introduced them to an innovative and research-based approach to design. Together they founded Arrhov Frick in 2010 in Stockholm, Sweden. Carlos Nieto Cid (1977) became a partner in 2017. Johan Arrhov and Henrik Frick give public lectures at universities across Europe and their work has been widely published in monographs and journals internationally. The Arrhov Frick studio has received various awards over the years and exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016.

Johan Arrhov has been a visiting professor at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio since 2021, where he holds a Design Studio oriented towards research on topics related to changes in social needs and behaviours, both understood as a tool for developing appropriate and meaningful architectural proposals.
 

THE ʹURSPRUNG' PROCESS
USPRUNG public talks
19-09-2024
Jean-Philippe Vassal, architect, Lacaton & Vassal, Paris
17-10-2024
Paul Bouet, architecture historian, ETHZ Postdoc, Paris
Olivier Dambron, civil engineer, Atmos lab, London
14-11-2024
Amy Perkins, architect, Assemble, London
James Binning, architect, Assemble, London
05-12-2024
Tina Ekener, architect, baubüro in situ, Basel

URSPRUNG project contributors
Ana Betancour, architect, AHO Professor, Oslo 
Sayako Hirakimoto, architect, Lugano 
Asako Iwama, artist and chef, Berlin
Mario Monotti, civil engineer, USI-ARC Professor, Locarno-Mendrisio
Akane Moriyama, textile artist and architect, Stockholm 
David Mutti, gardener, Mendrisio
Mikael Olsson, artist and photographer, Stockholm
Muck Petzet, architect, USI-ARC Professor, Berlin-Mendrisio
Giovanni Piovene, architect, Milan
Andrea Roscetti, building physics engineer, USI-ARC MER, Mendrisio 

URSPRUNG design studio
Johan Arrhov, architect, USI-ARC Visiting professor, Stockholm- Mendrisio
Iris Lacoudre, architect, USI-ARC assistant, Paris-Mendrisio
Edoardo Biondetti, architect, USI-ARC assistant, Milano-Mendrisio
Elena Catalano, architect, USI-ARC assistant, Palermo-Mendrisio