Cover
/ˈkʌv.ər/
(noun) a recording or performance of a song previously recorded by another performer (in other words a re-production)

The exhibition that was part of the fifth edition of Beta - the Timișoara Architecture Biennial, marking 10 years of the biennial, was installed within the historic building of the Garrison Command in Timișoara, Romania; the oldest structure in the city. A project initiated by the Timis Territorial Branch of the Order of Romanian Architects, the biannual design event acts as an activator for the region, connecting it to its neighbouring countries such as Serbia and Hungary; while spotlighting emerging practitioners. As the exhibition guide for cover me softly detailed, the architectural exhibition covered over 70 architects, designers, musicians, artists, activists, photographers, writers and directors (practitioners who defy simple categorisation) while uncovering the many entanglements with ideas, systems and entities that work toward the production and re-production of architecture, design and art.

The building itself within which the works were placed, could be thought of as embodying cover; whether as a space to shelter or an artefact that has undergone different refurbishments over the years, making it a cover version of the original as the guide suggested. Currently being used as a cultural centre, its original layout was reinstated through a series of careful procedures for the design biennial, which ended on October 27, 2024. "A cover has layers and layers of meaning and depth. The noun cover, in literal terms, speaks to the primary role of architecture, that of protection. I thought it was important to begin here, to remind ourselves or question, what it is exactly that we’re doing as architects," noted Oana Stănescu, curator of the exhibition, in conversation with STIR about its theme. "In parallel, the musical cover is a universally celebrated idea of starting from something existing, which other fields including architecture lack. I found the openness and potential playfulness of the musical cover to be a great potential to engage with the audience and create a space that is not didactic but a fertile ground for exploration, for learning, for asking, and crucially, for coming together," .

Curated by Romania-born and New York-based architect along with assistant curators Chase Galis and Simina Marin, cover me softly cycled through interpretations of the intangible notion of cover. The idea of working with the existing evoked by Stănescu when thinking of covers holds most relevance also for the idea of softly, or in a manner that displays care. In thinking through the abstract notion of covering, the showcase asked some pertinent questions on the nature of production and what that production or produced artefact is in service of, asking: what does architecture and design cover? What does the cover represent in terms of novelty and span of what design deals with? How can we dis-cover, re-cover and un-cover ways of being and doing that are pertinent to the challenges the crisis-stricken world faces today?

"It was a great mix of voices and perspectives weaving in together a range of commissions, several open calls and existing projects. There was the desire to have dialogues: at times between different architects such as Ad Hoc and Grass Batz, or architects and engineers such as Atmos Lab and Lacaton Vassal. It was in many ways an organic and rather fluid process that negotiated through innumerable conversations the interest, timing and possibilities of people whose work [spoke] to the topic, more or less directly," Stănescu said in retrospect of the expansive exhibition that foregrounded works that were locally relevant, spotlighting Romanian designers, activists and contemporary artists. Moreover, it included designers dealing with local and hyper-local conditions across Europe, whilst emphasising the interconnectedness of the issues being addressed.

Apart from the exhibition, the programme for the biennial included a series of performances by DJs and performance artists, lunches, talks, workshops and film screenings; with a focus on the idea of repetition; doing again and re-doing. The specifically curated nature of all the participants and programmed events for the recently concluded design fair further highlights the rather concerted nature of programming, distinct from the extended nature of other more widely recognised events.

Covering; Cover ground

(transitive verb) to deal with; to report news about

The concentrated nature of the programme, focused on providing a productive space for fruitful discussion grounded in local contexts was perhaps most emblematically portrayed by Zurich-based architecture studio Karamuk Kuo Architect’s Under Covers. A site-specific installation positioned in the foyer of the exhibition building, the work presented a bed covered in sheepskin rugs that became at once, a place for conversation and exchange as well as a space for refuge and rest. While it drew references to other art installations and works that used beds from Yoko Ono and John Lennon to the cover of Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York by Madelon Vriesendorp; the most relevant was its allusion to the traditions of Romanian houses, where communal living practices mean the bedroom becomes a multi-functional space for gathering under the soft covers of the rug.

Going into the idea of architecture as cover (or something that shelters you); Malkit Shoshan’s this space has no doors was designed as a tent-like structure, erected within one of the rooms of the garrison. Drawing on the research of Lebelle Prussin who theorised that tents should be considered a legitimate architectural form by emphasising their cultural significance in nomadic communities and Yona Friedman’s call for a self-reliant architecture through his practice, the large scale installation’s design involved local artisans, especially women. Highlighting the importance of collaboration, Shoshan’s design offered a hopeful vision of community and care in design while sparking conversations on cultural heritage.

Other interpretations of architecture as cover that dwelled on ideas of climate responsiveness and sustainability included London-based Atmos Lab’s Climatic Systems which contrasted two different architectural solutions (one in Argentina developed by Wladimiro Acosta and the other in France by Lacaton & Vassal); or Something Fantastic’s Kotatsu Table, a furniture design prototype that regulates thermal comfort indoors among others. Alternatively, GRASS+BATZ and Atelier Ad Hoc’s contribution Split looked at architecture’s responsibility in addressing social inequality by drawing comparisons between the conditions of the homeless populations in Bucharest and Santiago.

Covering not only served as a metaphor for habitation in the showcase but also implied how we understand a territory. This was illustrated by works such as Uruguay-based INST (Mauricio López, Matías Carballal, Diego Morera, Sebastián Lambert) and Carlos Casacuberta’s In Opera: Future Scenarios of a Young Forest Law which unravelled how a Forest Law acted as an active agent in considering the spatial, environmental and social future of Uruguay’s forests. Soft greenery covering natural terrains, or the mountains of granite covering landscapes, architecture is equally imbricated in the extraction of materials from ecosystems that cover the planet as raw material for construction. Marble Journey by Berlin-based architectural photographer Laurian Ghințoiu reminded visitors of this by depicting how 30,000 tons of marble were extracted and transported across Europe for the sole purpose of creating the facade for the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York.

While the biennial made it a point to include works that responded diversely to the theme, extending meanings of the cover and covering, the curators also specifically invited participants to contribute their interpretations or re-mixes to three briefs: Cover Bo Bardi, Cover Brâncuși and Cover a Lecture. The different responses to these when studied side by side offered a peek into what concerns contemporary designers, recontextualising what has come before. The works on display then could be thought of using Virgil Abloh’s design philosophy, as he articulated in his Harvard GSD speech, “Personal Design Language”. The three per cent approach Abloh spoke of is perhaps more relevant than ever to design today.

Cover up; Covered

(noun) something that protects, shelters, or guards; something that is placed over or about another thing

In thinking about what is usually covered by exhibitions and design festivals of this nature, we may think of how designers included in well-known biennials and design fairs engage with issues that design is in some way expected to have solutions for. The driving impetus for these showcases is that design can provide solutions and that discourse needs to necessarily address (and address correctly) the problems faced by the world today: the ultimate hubris of the designer as sole genius. In turning away from such notions, biennials such as Beta highlight processes of making and thinking with contexts that are local and what this might entail for designers. "I recently sat on a jury where innovation was still the top judging criteria and it really makes you wonder, why? To what end? I tend to think it is architecture’s limitations as a practice that in fact lead to this misplaced premium. Cover me softly tries less to fix an answer than to dislodge the ingrained," mentioned Stănescu. "The UN Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction 2023 says the sector contributes about 21 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with buildings responsible for 34 percent of the global energy demand and 37 percent of energy- and process-related carbon dioxide emissions, not to mention waste. At the same time architects insist on saying that these are not architectural problems. And they are right in that they are not exclusively architectural problems. However architecture is complicit. These are not matters of innovation, but a question of will to challenge the status quo...With the biennial it was important to create not just an exhibition that is looking elsewhere, but rather a place where the broader public feels invited to return to and be part of, both through the programming and content, and ultimately I would hope would find some sense of agency as well."

Romania-based Tudor Vlasceanu addressed this question of innovation in the form of The Other Side, a Pavilion of Pavilions. His installation considered the waste of architectural pavilions built specifically for design fairs, which while they claim to represent the pinnacle of design and ideation are usually ephemeral (to be dismantled and discarded once the event is over). Instead, Vlasceanu employed a circular design approach, reusing remnants of projects from past editions of the Beta Architecture Biennial, arranging them into new configurations for his work.

That is perhaps what was most exciting about the idea of the cover (and specifically the cover as alluding to re-doing) in the context of design fairs obsessed with novelty; by offering a lens through which to understand the networks that govern the determination of design: be that through mentors and references or natural ecosystems or the vast networks of collaborators and stakeholders that make design possible. Apart from the participants' works, the biennial alluded to the design’s use of references and the references that make up these references in posters on the walls of the exhibition space. From histories of colonialism and appropriation in the Congo Chair by Ilmari Tapiovaara to the IKEA's Frosta stool (a rehash of Alvar Aalto’s Stool 60); not only did connections begin to emerge but also the unsettling idea that perhaps novelty is not so novel after all. Even within the exhibition space, artefacts and domestic furniture borrowed from the Museum of the Banat Villages and local collections invited visitors to rethink the design of the chair. The presence of the chair and how it represents the cyclical nature of design, from one fair to the next, always reimagined, always new in some form reinforced the idea of novelty.

One particular work from Cover a Lecture highlighted this quandary succinctly, A New Lecture: Architecture’s Century-Long Quest for Novelty. For this remixed lecture, nida ekenel used snippets from over a hundred lectures by famous designers such as Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher, Bjarke Ingels and Rem Koolhaas that included the word new. “New form of sensibility,” “new possibilities to make connections,” “together into a new, a new kind of hybridity,” and so forth. The small snippets, played one after the other in an endless loop, left one wondering if designers over a hundred years have chased the elusive notion of the new, when will this emerge? What does novelty even mean, in the context of a practice that must necessarily consider that which has come before and that which affects it? Ultimately, the works on display, their affinities and dissimilarities, their connections and particularities; when compared to other design events (or covers if you will) beg the question, “Do we need another chair?”

'Beta - Timișoara Architecture Biennial' runs from September 13 - October 27, 2024, in Timișoara, Romania.