British School in Rome

OMA "On Hold"

OMA . more: British School in Rome

As the sixth event of The British School's programme "Three Cities in Flux, an investigation into urban regeneration in London, Milan and Rome," OMA Partner Reinier de Graaf will present the lecture and exhibition "On Hold" on 4 May.
The exhibition will show ten of OMA's masterplanning commissions which are now either on hold or discontinued: an urban regeneration project in White City, London, a project for the Nuova Bovisa science city in Milan, and a selection of projects in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Conceived in the virtual space of the computer, and with no imminent prospect of realization, these projects remain virtual in every sense. By retroactively creating physical originals, this exhibition hopes to make the virtual tangible. Prints on canvas, paper or card show the imagery as if dug up from some dusty archive – history with a message for the future, looking back as a way of looking forward.
The lecture will highlight the sometimes difficult role that architects play in masterplanning as they negotiate the forces of the private sector, political pressures, the declining power of the public sector, and the severe economic crisis. Through a body of work primarily known through its imagery, de Graaf will reflect on the rehabilitation of urbanism as the ‘other product’ of the construction boom, as well as the implications these plans have for the future.
Reinier de Graaf comments: "What will be next? The current time is mainly one of questions. Will the pre-crisis boom go into the history books as an aberration? Or, will the previous building boom prove only a precursor of things to come? Is 'On Hold' merely a convenient euphemism to keep hope alive (for clients and architects alike), a shared inability to face the facts, or does it really only signify the pause it seems to insist on, a coma from which these enterprises will one day awake?"
The Architecture Programme British School at Rome curated by Marina Engel presents "On Hold" at the British School at Rome, Via Gramsci 61, from 4–25 May 2011. Opening times are from Tuesday to Saturday from 17.00–19.30.
Projects featured in the exhibition:
White City, London, 2004
Gateway City, Ras-al-Khaimah, 2006
Almaty Science City, Kazakhstan, 2007Apraskin Dvor, St. Petersburg, 2007
Nuova Bovisa, Milan, 2007
Waterfront City, Dubai, 2008
Crescent Islands, Dubai, 2008
Riga Port City, Latvia, 2009
Skolkovo, Moscow, 2011