October 4, 2012

OPUS CAEMENTITIUM in situ



The biennale of Architecture in Venice started 5 weeks ago already! The grand opening was a great event to attend of course and, now that we’re back, we can present you more in details our “concrete” installation for the exhibition "Traces of centuries and future steps" held at Palazzo Bembo.

This project started as a dialog about the perception of concrete of four individuals from the same generation but with different backgrounds - Ema Bozin, Csaba Szekely (bozin szekely architects), Adina Socol and Sophie Klein (Lab'process). We found concrete to be an “emotionally loaded material” when it comes to individual perceptions influenced by social, political and historical events. Two different major perceptions mainly emerged: the one of a material generally seen as a cold, ugly, unfinished, and unfriendly due to the association with different symbols of urban brutalism and the one of a material with incredible qualities such as texture, colour, malleability, strong presence, stability, sincerity.

Concrete, indeed, can be everything and anything. Concrete has no predetermined texture, colour or shape. It can be qualified as chameleon material that can take an infinite number of appearances. The aesthetic and creative strengths of this material make it a constant source of inspiration for designers and architects.

Our project aims to tell a 3d story based on the observation of how the cultural background and the personal perception can change the view upon a material, and how this perception, filtered through the architect’s or the designer’s mind can influence and change the image of a product made of a specific material. Our installation seeks to represent architectural and design concepts in a new way, through 3d models (containing 3d sections, plans and facades) with pure, basic shapes. Each concrete volume can easily explain an entire architectural project or a design item.

Opus caementitium (Roman concrete in Latin) refers to ‘Opus’: artwork (our objects), tries to explain architecture and design, as some sort of sculptures or complex objects; and ‘caementitium’: concrete, as the basic constructive, pure material…

Opus caementitium is to be discovered at Palazzo Bembo till November 25th!




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