The job description of the architect has fundamentally changed with the emergence of a globalized society, and it will continue to do so in the future. Already today, the demands of the job no longer correspond to the profile on which classical architectural training is based.
In this context, the question that arises is no longer that of the building alone, but also that of a changed approach to building and new pathways within design itself.
This is where Explorations comes in: internationally celebrated authors, all of whom are professors as well and hence directly involved in the processes they describe, address the principal topics of contemporary architectural research. Taking the works of their own design studios as examples (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule [ETH] Zürich [Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich]: Marc Angélil, Fabio Gramazio/Matthias Kohler; Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne [EPFL, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne]: Harry Gugger, Dieter Dietz), they offer concrete discussions of those topics and place them in the context of applied research and practice. Short and accessible essays on the most important architectural movements of the twentieth century clarify the relationship between the subjects discussed and canonical architectural research.
The exhibition at the Swiss Pavilion of the 2008 Venice Architecture Biennale is merely intended as a springboard for further study of the subject.