Friedman, who is 88 and lives in Paris, has never seen one of the buildings he designed built. Yet he has had a big influence on 20th century architecture. Even in the 1950s, before the pace of development of modernism started to be questioned, Friedman said people were building too much and this had unforeseeable consequences.
Friedman pressed for unity between man and nature, and he planned floating cities above grounded historical cities that preserve cultural treasures but also allow the fast-growing population to shape their own environments as they wish. One might say Friedman was the first to pose the complicated question of sustainability.
The show in LUMU does not show Friedman?s work, but his principles. The curators NIkolett Erős and Hajnalka Somogyi have presented his visions in the space of the museum with enormous scaffolding that achieve the scale of Friedman?s ?ville spatiale? or spatial, floating city. Friedman?s plan for a communications and transportation network that connects Europe and makes it a single megastructure without affecting local character hangs from the ceiling of the exhibition space.
On an enormous modeling table, visitors can build their own cities using the same recycled packaging materials that Friedman used.
Friedman?s original drawings and photographs, as well as a film about his life can be seen in the last rooms of the exhibition.
?Yona Friedman. Architecture without building? runs until January 8, 2012.
Author: Esztet Götz
