2014
RRR - Ostwall 7
Reduce / Reuse / Recycle
Architecture as Resource
Ostwall 7
Dortmund
06th December 2014 – 01st February 2015
Reduce / Reuse / Recycle, Ostwall 7, Dortmund is an exhibition of architectonic reuse-projects and transformation strategies - sharing an affirmative attitude towards the existing. The exhibition was developed by architect and curator Muck Petzet as german contribution to the 13th international architecture exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia in 2012.
The exhibition project is implementing a system of values from the waste industry into the field of architecture. Could it be that - also when dealing with existing buildings and situations - reduction and avoidance are the first choice - followed by reuse and recycling? Is there something like ‚avoidance strategies‘ in the field of architecture? Can existing architecture be seen as the resource for our future?
The exhibition building - the former Museum am Ostwall - is an integral part - and fitting context for the exhibition. In 2009 the museum was shut down and emptied of its collection to establish a new museum in Dortmund. Since years there is an ongoing discussion whether to sell and tear down the building or adapt it to a new use. StadtBauKultur NRW wants to contribute new arguments to this discussion by implementing the RRR exhibition and superimposing the exhibition spaces with a layer of information about the rich history of the building - which since its origins as an administration building in the middle of the 19th century has undergone major changes and transformations. In this sense the exhibition itself is a project illustrating the most important avoidance strategy: change of perception.