Alex Römer (Berlin) is an architect and carpenter who founded the creative network constructLab to design and build both ephemeral and permanent site specific projects. Unlike the conventional architectural process in which the architect designs and the builder builds, in constructLab a project's conception and construction are brought together. The construction site is the context in which the project can be enriched by the intelligence of the builders' knowledge and the unexpected opportunities that occur on site. The designers/builders bring the site to life through their presence, generating new dynamics between people and allowing them to integrate other participants. This synergy results in a collective work, and gives the building site a sense of place.
In his Big Ideas lecture, Roemer will be discussing his work with constructLab and Parisian collective EXYZT, with whom he has collaborated on many notable projects, including the French contribution to the 10th architecture biennial in Venice 2006: a 3-month long living performance that transformed the French pavilion into an inhabitation. Using examples like these, Roemer will extrapolate on how constructLab binds the creative and the practical, thinking and making, to set each project within a social, environmental and temporal context.
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The Big Ideas in Art and Culture Lecture Series is a co-production of Musagetes and CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area. CAFKA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation,, City of Kitchener, the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation – Musagetes Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and Christie Digital in helping to make this lecture series possible.