Drafts by Cornelia Escher
Books by Cornelia Escher
In 1972, German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers and his students at Cornell University developed ... more In 1972, German architect Oswald Mathias Ungers and his students at Cornell University developed a prototype for a Self-Help Housing System (S-HHS). Around the same time, Ungers and his wife Liselotte published a study titled Communes in the New World 1740–1972, examining utopian communities in the U.S. Ungers’ 1972 architectural approach fused typological research, modern urban planning, and utopianism in a novel way. The S-HHS concept aimed to integrate community-driven initiatives with broader political, social, and economic frameworks. Together, the projects highlighted alternative forms of communal organization and emphasized the dynamic, collaborative nature of architectural production. This third publication, initiated through a 2021 summer school at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, explores systematic and inventive architectural strategies through essays, interviews, and artistic research.
Negotiating Ungers 2: The Oberhausen Institute and the materiality of the social, 2022
negotiating ungers the materiality of the social the oberhausen institute, book 1 rudolf holtappe... more negotiating ungers the materiality of the social the oberhausen institute, book 1 rudolf holtappel, staatliche institution zur erlangung der hochschulreife (institute for the attainment of higher education entrance qualifications), oberhausen, 1963. image credit: rudolf holtappel/fotoarchiv ruhr museum book 1
Negotiating Ungers: The aesthetics of sustainability, the solar house, 2019
Essays by Cornelia Escher
Landscript 5: Material Culture, 2017
Articles by Cornelia Escher
Oase, 2022
Environmental thinking in architecture often focusses on relations, processes, and networks. Howe... more Environmental thinking in architecture often focusses on relations, processes, and networks. However, the formal and cultural properties of ecological architecture and its potential to interact and reorient practices are rarely discussed. To address this, our essay analyzes a design for solar housing by Oswald Mathias Ungers from 1980. In the design, contemporary accounts of autonomy and ecology form an uncommon alliance. Ungers’ design suggests to work with formal and conceptual tools and sets them in relation to energy systems as well as human and more than human behaviour. This juxtaposition of autonomy and ecology can help scrutinize today’s debate on architecture in the Anthropocene and open up paths for a new ecological aesthetics.
ARCH+ 211/212, 2013
In our interview, we would like to focus on two central issues: adaptable and ecological architec... more In our interview, we would like to focus on two central issues: adaptable and ecological architecture. As early as the postwar years, you were developing techniques that incorporated the reuse of materials, representing something of a foundation for both of those fields. You must be referring to one of my earliest publications about backing masonry. That must have been the late 1940s. 1 In the 1950s, you published other articles, such as Das ungeheizt schon warme Haus [The unheated, yet warm home], which explores the question of energy conservation through solar energy. 2
Papers by Cornelia Escher
Thinking by modelling, 2017
Model-Experiment-Environment Architectural models influence the ways in which archi tecture is pe... more Model-Experiment-Environment Architectural models influence the ways in which archi tecture is perceived. Experimenting in their static laboratories and studios, the engineers and architects of the mid-twentieth century were particularly intent on investigating the different shapes and forms of models. The physical experiment-which was customarily adopted as the technique for model making-was thus associated with new ideas concerning architectonic space as a network involving technology, nature, and human actors. However, these ideas extended beyond the tech nological. A look at the model-making techniques used by Frei Otto around 1960 clearly shows how artistic and technological concepts overlap in his architecture, which was particularly influenced by his connection to the Groupe d 1 Etudes d 1 Architecture Mobile (GEAM), a group of architects affiliated with the utopian avant garde of the 1960s. 1 Research has hitherto chiefly focused on the aspects of engineering technology apparent in Frei Otto's work, virtually ignoring his GEAM membership and his references to contemporary art although an analysis of both these aspects in fact pro vides a better understanding of Otto's projects and his standing in the field of architecture. In Irmgard Lochner-Aldinger's examination of model-making techniques and construction methods in twentieth-century civil engineering, the author claims that the artistic and theoretical framework of innova• tive engineering technologies had a somewhat detri mental influence on the static performance of construc tions in the twentieth century. 2 However, Otto's models visibly show that the semantic layers assembled around the technical core of architecture are what enable us to understand the changes and innovative impulses of imaginative technology. 3 In this context, it is inter esting to look at the spatial practices of environmental art that emerged around 1960. While the aim of art was to create performative and changing "surroundings" based on the bodily perceptions of individuals,4 archi tectural environments brought together artistic, biolog ical, and technological narratives. 1 On GEAM, see Cornelia Escher, "'Den Zufall behausen': Architektur• entwurfe der Studlengruppe fur mobiles Bauen (GEAM)" (Zurich:
Modell-Experiment-Umwelt Architektonische Mod ell• beeinflussen d ie Art und W els• wie über Arch... more Modell-Experiment-Umwelt Architektonische Mod ell• beeinflussen d ie Art und W els• wie über Architektur selbst nachged acht wird. Die Aus• I•' n• nders• tzung m i t untersch iedlic hen Formen d er Modelll• rung verlief zur Mitte d es 20. J• hrhunderts In d en statischen Lab oren und Ateliers vo n Ingenie uren und Archit ekten beson ders Intensiv. Das physikalisch e Expe• rlment , d as al s Techni k d er Modellierung g• brl uc hlich wurd e, verknü pfte s ic h hier mit neuen Vo rst ellungen Ober
In our interview, we would like to focus on two central issues: adaptable and ecological architec... more In our interview, we would like to focus on two central issues: adaptable and ecological architecture. As early as the post-war years, you were developing techniques that incorporated the reuse of materials, representing something of a foundation for both of those fields. You must be referring to one of my earliest publications about backing masonry. That must have been the late 1940s.1 In the 1950s, you published other articles, such as Das ungeheizt schon warme Haus [The unheated, yet warm home], which explores the question of energy conservation through solar energy.2 I could demonstrate the principle using the example of the studio that we’re sitting in right now. If the sun began to shine, it would be warm in here in ten minutes without any additional heating. That’s a so-called passive house. That’s not as interesting today as it once was, because the active use of solar energy has made such progress. I investigated the issue of passive solar housing in my Diplomarbeit [gradua...
Trajectoires
Article introductif au dossier thématique du numéro 9 de Trajectoires, revue des jeunes chercheur... more Article introductif au dossier thématique du numéro 9 de Trajectoires, revue des jeunes chercheurs du CIERA. Article écrit avec Cornelia Escher, Daniel Rakovsky, Anne Seitz, Luca Scholz et Philipp Siegert
The Journal of Architecture, 2020
In the 1960s, architectural utopia became a popular topic in the press and architecture schools. ... more In the 1960s, architectural utopia became a popular topic in the press and architecture schools. Much has been written on utopia’s intermediate position between modern and postmodern architecture. But the utopian images themselves have so far been overlooked. This article focuses on the Groupe d’Études d’Architecture Mobile (GEAM) to specify the role of the utopian image between technological, political, and architectural debates. The analysis demonstrates that the changes in architectural utopia refer less to a transition towards postmodernism, history, and the end of utopia than to a change in image culture. This is when new modelling techniques and the use of new communicative images as photocollage, different types of illustrations, and techniques of simulation enter the field. They all belong to a new class of prospective architectural images that emerged from the fusion of prognosis and design. Originating from postwar planning culture, technological, and scientific innovations, they describe a new relation towards the future that oscillates between prefiguration and openness.
Uploads
Drafts by Cornelia Escher
Books by Cornelia Escher
Essays by Cornelia Escher
Articles by Cornelia Escher
Papers by Cornelia Escher