The Seasonal Salon - Roma Rügen Riga

Susanne Brorson

Knowing through making - the seasonal salon as framework for experimentation
- Roma Rügen Riga

The seasonal pavilion can be described as a ‘spatial enquiry’ into several bioregions across Europe. In between 2023 and 2025, it went on a journey from the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome, via Weissenhofsiedlung Stuttgart, the women in architecture festival on the Baltic island of Rügen and finally destined as educational device based with Riseba University Riga in the Baltic Sea region.

Designed as timber framework on floatable pontoons it enables the methodological process of ‘making’, of building experimentation for knowledge production with renewable and fast-growing materials from different bioregions. In each location, the pavilion received a new façade woven from local natural materials, involving several architecture schools such as UniRomaTRE Rome, KIT Karlsruhe, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Riseba Riga.

To explore characteristics of different biobased materials and their potential role as resources, but also physical properties, vernacular tradition and related craftsmanship, the ‘seasonal pavilion’ was developed as a 1:1 framework to facilitate experimental research on the use of different biogenic materials as cladding material, such as cutting grass (Rome), sedges (Stuttgart), reed (Rügen) or birch bark (Riga). Research outcomes as artifacts are being made available and understood through the accompanying travelling exhibition ‘seasonal spontaneousness’.
In applying different methodologies of a) knowledge collection and documentation, b) the method of ‘knowing though making’ and c) critical and reflective enquiry into local biogenic resources and their potential use in bioregional architecture is enabled through the ‘seasonal salon’, opening a dialogue between ‘the question’ and ‘the place’. By moving through different locations, the pavilion is highlighting the contrast between different contexts with specific preconditions.

Project Gallery

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Susanne Brorson DE

http://www.studiosusannebrorson.com
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