IKA Institute for Art and Architecture presents:
HITZE TAKES COMMAND is the annual project 2019/2020 of the Institute for Art and Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
HITZE TAKES COMMAND is an attempt to understand a phenomenon that was previously an exceptional situation and has since become the new normal, with unlimited potential for escalation.
HITZE TAKES COMMAND is a reaction to increasing climate shifts, the contours of which became visible in the past century and are now extremely critical.
HITZE TAKES COMMAND is the result of an in-depth debate. Structurally, the title alludes to Sigfried Giedion’s book “Mechanization Takes Command”. The title is ambiguous. On the one hand, it means that heat has taken the helm. On the other hand, it means that heat requires control.
HITZE TAKES COMMAND is a reaction to the publication “Urban Heat Islands – Strategy Plan Vienna”. The IKA wants to juxtapose this strategy plan with projects from an architectural and artistic perspective, both in a supportive and a productively critical sense.
HITZE TAKES COMMAND and the curriculum: Are our curricula heat-appropriate? Is our education such that students and teachers develop the knowledge needed to deal with heat phenomena and climate change?
HITZE TAKES COMMAND is a collaborative project of the entire IKA faculty and students, including design studios, research projects, workshops, exhibitions, publications, excursions, lecture series and a keynote by Vandana Shiva (November 11, 2019).
HITZE 1 lecture series winter 2019
Hitze (heat) as a property of bodies, spaces and regions has shaped and continues to shape our thinking about architecture and cities. The lecture series, part of IKA’s 2019/2020 special programme HITZE TAKES COMMAND, examines the spatial culture of temperature, and its broader social and political implications, through the eyes of a number of contemporary thinkers. The historians, artists, scientists, and architects assembled in this lecture series will explore the topic of hitze in dimensions ranging from the soup pot to the troposphere. Who can think of the future today without consideration of hitze? Every exceptionally warm day is imagined as portending future disaster, while a sudden cold day provides hope that the ravages of climate change might be mitigated. Our experience of hitze is overburdened with dread, and yet, hitze is also a form of pleasure—integral to sensations of taste, comfort, and sexuality. We hope to discover and understand more about the realm of hitze in explorations of fields that will shape the future of architecture and urbanism. HITZE lecture series 2019/2020 is curated by David Gissen and Hannes Stiefel.
Philippe Rahm: October 1, 2019
Philippe Rahm Architectes, Paris
Philippe Rahm Architectes: Recent climatic architectures
Ulrike Lohmann: October 28, 2019
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich
The role of clouds and aerosol particles in the current and a warmer climate
Philipp Blom: November 25, 2019
Historian, Writer and Broadcaster, Vienna
Nature’s Mutiny - Nature and Culture in Times of Climate Change
Nerea Calvillo: December 2, 2019
C+ arquitectas / Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, University of Warwick
Heated Pollution
