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The Great Pyramid has been selected as one of the projects to be exhibited at the 2008 Venice Architectural Biennale´s German Pavilion from September 12 until November 23. Under the title “Updating Germany”, commissioners Matthias Böttger and Friedrich von Borries of raumtaktik are collecting steps towards a better future with ecologically and socially sustainable projects. The Venice Architecture Biennale is the biggest and most important exhibition on architecture and urban development worldwide.
We guess, our project expands the curators´ initial question “How will we live tomorrow?” to an even broader context, probing a time beyond individual existence. How will we die tomorrow? And how will we be interred, be memorized and remembered? The project hopes to provide the soothing prospect, so that all of us might rest with a great many of individuals from most different national, cultural, religious, and social backgrounds in an ever-expanding grand pixelwall of humanity. The Great Pyramid seeks to help us to acknowledge death as a natural fact but will also be able to convey a message of peace and unity into life long before death.
It´s been a rather bumpy ride to Venice. The text that ended up in the catalogue is not authorized and contains factual mistakes. Also, the curators did not find it necessary to cut a couple of euros from their half million budget to cover travel expenses for the creators of the work they put on display - but still we enjoy being part of the exhibition.
We would like to thank Marco Beeck and everybody at Shapers, the manufacturer of the new prototype stones in the exhibition, for their support.
Photos of the 2008 German pavilion by Mario Ermoli.
In there: 192 pages including contributions from Rem Koolhaas, Christian Kracht, Chus MartĂnez, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Madelon Vriesendorp and others, plenty of dazzling press blurbs as well as various texts and presentations by the editors. Plus full color pages of fascinating architectural designs and ideas for the area around the Great Pyramid from Atelier Bow-Bow (Tokyo), FAKE Design/Ai Weiwei (Beijing), Nikolaus Hirsch, Wolfgang Lorch & Markus Miessen (Frankfurt/London) and MADA s.p.a.m. (Shanghai).
If you have made an unbinding reservation for a Pyramid stone and agreed to have your name listed on the project´s website, you too may find yourself in the book. More on this when we make a more extensive excerpt available soon. Meanwhile you might refer to a few preview pages at our publisher´s website, Sternberg Press.
Oh, and course we wouldn´t mind if you consider ordering it from amazon.com, amazon.de etc. or through any local bricks and mortar bookstore of your choice. Thanks to Sternberg Press´s advanced distribution network the volume should be available more or less worldwide.
German news agency dpa ran a story about the Great Pyramid earlier this week, here in German or there in English. The headline and intro spectacularizes the potential size again, but still the piece is factually correct. Since a couple of people seemed unsure of potential legal impediments, we were particularly glad to see this bit published:
The German Association of Undertakers in Dusseldorf believes the idea is feasible. “It is a community burial ground like any other. If local authorities oversee it, then it is possible,” says the association’s general manager, Rolf Lichtner.
Oh, and the project has been part of the official German contribution to the Venice Architectural Biennale that opened just recently. More on the Biennal incl. photos from the German pavilion tomorrow.
When Sweden´s leading free daily METRO published a piece about the Great Pyramid in March, they asked their online readers to vote whether they would consider the Pyramid for themselves. We found the outcome quite impressive and made the screenshot above.
The Pyramid got a 52% Yes-response from Sweden. Sure, technically this is not a representative survey and the site didn´t say anything about the sample size, but since we received about 400 hits from Metro´s homepage, we guess 100% equals about a couple of dozens votes.
The Pyramid likes Sweden too..
Last Monday night culminated in these three numbers when Ingo and I presented the Great Pyramid project at Kunsthochschule Kassel (Kassel Art School) upon invitation of Oliver Vogt, chair in industrial design there. Oliver on his part invited Philipp Oswalt, professor of architectural theory at the school, to join us on the panel to discuss the Pyramid with the fifty-or-so visitors that evening.
I first gave a thirty minute presentation; Oliver, Philipp and Ingo then reflected on a couple of issues before the mic was opened to the audience to voice their own thoughts and questions. It went as usual: Most introduced their statements/ questions with „I really think the Pyramid is a very cool/practical/amazing idea, though there´s a few things I would like to ask/mention ..“ We like people asking questions and sharing their own ideas. Thoughts and questions help us to understand what the Pyramid project actually could mean, since we ourselves try not to narrow down the Pyramid to have too particular meanings. It will be what all of us make of it, it´s a platform. Thank you everybody who came; it´s been truly inspiring.
At the subsequent dinner, Philipp raised quite some doubts. As a thought-provoking investigation into media culture, the Great Pyramid would be just great - but will it really, really work, he was worrying? We were a bit worried too, recollecting his panel contributions we might not have been able to grasp entirely. It may be these years of shrinkage discussions that turned Philipp into something very unlike us: a professional sceptic. He was founding head of Shrinking Cities, an acclaimed and very thorough research and exhibition project that investigated challenges and prospects of population-wise rapidly diminishing regions in various parts of the Western world. It may be an inclination towards theoretical instead of hands-on practical investigation and analysis as well. It may be none of that.
What we liked a lot about Philipp, however, was his longer-term perspective on things that provided us with the slightly enigmatic numbers in this post´s header. Philipp challenged us and we gladly accepted his bet: a six-bottles case of champagne if the Pyramid would not contain 10,000 stones eight years from now.
We were briefly considering whether lustily sparkling champagne might not be a bit inadequate – but as Ai Weiwei has worded it as well as squarely in his TGP competition entry: „Celebrate death as part of live!“ So, we rest assured and look forward to seeing the arrival of six inconspicuous bottles of Philipp´s choice before May 2016.
What, if we ourselves could make a selection instead? Krug? Cristal? We guess, we would settle for modest Piper Heidsieck Cuvée Brut or no more than Taittinger Brut Réserve.. - As in: Granite? Marble? Thanks, but no thanks - plain concrete will do just nicely..
Thanks Hermann Gnaedinger for the somewhat ghostlike, year-2002-style cell phone photo above. From left: Jens Thiel, Ingo Niermann, Philipp Oswalt, Oliver Vogt
Looking forward to presenting the Great Pyramid in Kassel tomorrow (cf. the second last post), we remembered we have been already to this sleepy town in the heartland of Germany that only awakes once every five years when the global art caravan flies in for the documenta show.
Back in July 2007 arch+ invited us to introduce the Great Pyramid at their documenta 12 mini-marathon. It´s somewhat funny to see the video now. Unlike today, we weren´t absolutely sure yet how this thing would really work .. But in any case this wasn´t meant to be a business presentation but a reflection on what can be thought and done, what opportunities actually exist to re-think things radically..
Ingo Niermann, clumsy and smart as usual, talking to Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rem Koolhaas.
Pages from arch+ 186/187
Click the images to see the video or read the transcription from the most recent arch+ issue. Apologies to our readers who prefer English - it´s all in German.
Michiel van Raaij over at eikonographia.com quite extensively reflects on the Great Pyramid architecture contest submissions from Hirsch/Lorch/Miessen, Ai Weiwei/FAKE, Atelier Bow-Wow and MADA. Good thoughts you might want to read..
We will introduce the project at the Kassel Art Academy upon invitation of Oliver Vogt and Philipp Oswalt.
We had to take our video offline for technical reasons. Please refer to Fred Plassmann´s nicely shot and edited clip at architekturclips.de - it´s somewhat shorter but you´ll get a good idea of the presentation. In there also some uncredited stills from the Great Pyramid documentary that will be out in cinemas later this year.
For the files: A thousand individuals from about 50 countries have made an unbinding reservation for a stone in The Great Pyramid as of yesterday. This number is growing by one or two dozens a day at the time. Thank you all!
