The exhibition is on display 11 November – 27 August 2023
Kalmar Konstmuseum, the Treehotel in Harads, the KTH School of Architecture in Stockholm – all acclaimed and admired contemporary buildings. Tham & Videgård is one of Sweden’s most prominent and unique architectural studios, having designed projects that have come to herald a new approach in Swedish architecture in the 21st Century.
The exhibition offers visitors a full-scale spatial experience involving models, new photography, and films – all set within a unique glass ground. The exhibition provides a deeper understanding of the contemporary architecture that shapes our cities and living environments today.
Tham & Videgård are internationally recognised, award-winning architects of unique buildings at a wide variety of scales. The exhibition shows a broad selection of projects from the studio’s over twenty years in practice. These include the Nya konst faculty of arts building for the University of Gothenburg, the 150 metre-tall +One Tower and main entrance for the Swedish Exhibition and Congress Centre in Gothenburg, the Denfert art centre in Paris, and a spectacular office building at Sveaplan – a new cornerstone on the northern approach to Stockholm. These are buildings that are helping to shape the cityscape of the future.
Based on a desire to work with the architecture that they felt was missing in Sweden, Bolle Tham (b. 1970) and Martin Videgård (b. 1968) started their studio in 1999. Their ambition was to try out new ideas and approaches and to realise them in built projects. The exhibition’s title—On: Architecture—starts from Tham and Videgård’s wish for the exhibition to ignite a conversation about aspects of architecture which are, to them, in the shadows. Building into an architectural debate that often avoids core issues, the exhibition highlights aspects of Tham & Videgård’s work to shed light on other fundamental facets of architecture.
Architecture concerns us all. It is the most comprehensive and complex art form in society. In our work, it emerges from an ongoing discussion about architecture and a desire to explore what architecture can be,” say Bolle Tham & Martin Videgård.
For the first time in a long while, ArkDes is hosting an exhibition on currently active Swedish architects. This is also the first time the studio’s work is being presented in its entirety. The installation comprises 432 square metres of glass surface, which invite the visitor to experience the exhibition – a gathering space, like a town square, that can be used for reflection and discussion as well as activities relating to architecture and its role in society. The space brings the visitor into contact with a full-scale architectural experience.
“Moving across the installation’s glass floor, which dominates the exhibition, is a full body experience in the same way that an encounter with a building—moving up a staircase or through a sequence of rooms—always makes us feel something,” says Daniel Golling, curator of the exhibition.
Tellus Nursery School, Tham & Videgård Arkitekter 2007-10
Garden House, Tham & Videgård Arkitekter 2006-08
KTH School of Architecture, Tham & Videgård Arkitekter 2007-15
Treehotel. Tham & Videgård Arkitekter 2008-10
Photos: Åke E:son Lindman
