Liquid Architectures

For its second edition, the Bruges Triennial invites the Frac Centre-Val de Loire (Regional Contemporary Art Collection) to present a selection of works that reflects the theme of the 2018 triennial.

Comprising monumental works presented in the church and gardens of the Grootseminarie, the selection testifies to the growing influence since the 1990s of a new approach to architecture resulting from digital design and manufacturing tools. In the Western mind, architecture is traditionally associated with the solid state and monumental architectonics. And yet, throughout the history of architecture, the form has consistently broken out of the straitjacket of orthogonality through the efforts of architects determined to liquidate—sometimesliterally—the traditional language. This search forcontinuity surpasses mere design to exceed and affirm i tself in relation to the world. It is not by chance that this quest was the work particularly of artists and architects who advocated a synthesis between the arts, including architecture, and life by adapting one to the functioning of the other (Ionel Schein). This movement reappeared with greater force to take centre stage from the 1990s onwards with its ‘blob’ architecture, a direct result of the introduction of computing to architectural practice.