The Presence of Things: Martin Steinmann 1942–2022 / EPFL Architecture

Hommage to Martin Steinmann.

Part 2 of a two-part colloquium organised in collaboration with ETH Zurich (Part 1 on 11 October 2022).

Martin Steinmann (1942–2022) was a sharp observer of contemporary Swiss architecture. His work uniquely straddled criticism and teaching, professional and academic endeavours, bridging between heterogeneous architectural cultures. Throughout his career, first as researcher at the gta Institute, editor of archithese, and architecture professor at EPFL, he encouraged practitioners to articulate their positions conceptually, and become critics of their own architecture. He used the clarity of language to reject the entrapping of intuitive, subjective, or arbitrary form-making in design processes. Underpinned by semiotics and Gestalt psychology methods and phenomenology, his work recorded the formal and material aspects of built architecture, especially Swiss architecture.

17h30 
Presentation of the magazine matière 17, EPFL Press, 2022: Christophe Van Gerrewey
Presentation of the book Diener & Diener Architects—Housing, Park Books, 2020: Rober Diener

17h45
Teaching Housing
Presentation by Irina Davidovici et Alexandre Blanc
Roundtable with Irina Davidovici, Alexandre Blanc, Eric Lapierre
Moderation: Bernard Zurbuchen

18h45
Stimmung & Forme Forte
Presentation by Bruno Reichlin, Jacques Lucan and Christophe Van Gerrewey
Roundtable with Catherine Dumont d’Ayot, Christophe Van Gerrewey, Jacques Lucan, Bruno Reichlin
Moderation: Bruno Marchand

Aperitif