Master Project "Closing the Circle. About Food and Space(s)"
with integrated seminar
Critical Curating.
About Architectural Knowledge Production and Exhibitions
Team
Prof. Dr. Andres Lepik, Dr. Andjelka Badnjar, Stefan Pielmeier
Students
Anna D'Ambrosio, Teodor-Andrei Cazan, Natalie Judkowsky, Jan Müller, Alice Ianakiev, Betina Albrecht, Laura Madinger, Federico Di Dio, Magdalena Weinzierl, Sebastian Zitzmann, Stefan Pielmeir, together with PhD candidate Natália Correia Brandão
Number of students
24 Master Project
30 Seminar (motivation letter kindly requested for external applicants unrelated to the master project by Oct 16 at badnjar@architekturmuseum.de)
Credits&Days
15 credits ECTS Master (12+3)
Duration 2 hours seminar, 6 hours studio
Studio Wednesdays 11:30-17:30, place TBC
Seminar Thursdays 09:45-11:15 in Seminarraum 0340B
Teamwork
Groups of 2 possible
Languages
English&German
Reviews
Review I Nov 6
Review II Dec 18
Final Review Feb 5
Applications
Please send us your request by Oct 16 at: badnjar(at)architekturmuseum.de
Schedule
Download Schedule (available from Oct 7)
Intro
Food and Space are inseparably married culturally, politically and environmentally. Back in Roman times, munuds meant the mouth of a city, a place where sacrifices to gods were thrown. It was part of the main square and the first thing to be established once a city was founded. Today, each human should have on disposal around 2 m2 of Earth’s surface available to feed themselves, in a decreasing trend towards targeted 1.5 m2 in 2050. Known facts are that arable land should stop growing because of climate and biodiversity, that consumption of meat needs to drop down in favour of plant proteins, and that we should decrease food waste, knowing that, according to the UN 17 % of food ends up in the trash.
Searching solutions, on the one hand, stand vertical farms and technological promises mostly suited to small, wealthy and relatively self-sufficient states such as the Netherlands, Israel or Singapore. These adapt cities to climate change and help mitigate heat, but they are still far from being a response to food security. On another side, the preservation of indigenous knowledge of food production becomes not only attributed to hippie scientists but also an object of serious revision such as the case Columbian large-scale indigenous irrigation system Zenú Channels destroyed by Spaniards in the 16th century nowadays in attempts to get revitalized.
That food production is pushed away from cities’ sight is a historical trend since the mid-20th Green Revolution based on hybrid seeds, mechanization, fertilizers and chemicals to create food for masses, followed by the exhaustion of land and emission of greenhouse gasses. With the global food industrial system and demographic food demand, arguing for cities as places of food production is certainly a niche. Yet, with their increasing population cities are to address critical awareness for rare scenarios that might still work - we need all disposable means in best effort trial: intensification of crops with lots of nature around, shorter food miles, fairer politics and new food cultures. This means enhancing diversity in multiple dimensions through biodiversity, technodiversity, chemistry and biology, geodiversity — indigenous farming, and finally social diversity and cultural habits.
Food has always been related to architecture: from historic markets as public places par excellence to contemporary spaces of food production that occupy buildings rather than oceans and soils for growing shrimp, cows or tomatoes. Furthermore, from iconic and anonymous kitchens that nurtured various forms of domesticity influenced by modernity and gender policies, to publicly invisible factories, processing spaces and logistic centres depicted in the Venice Biennale 2023 Spanish Pavilion as a creature of its own — a complex system of foodscapes. Streets relate to food through the history of food protests and wars such as Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, and Opium Wars or movements such as La Via Campesina today or the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. Or through big-scale urban events such as Munich Octoberfest or Olympic games that time and time again pose the question of food waste. Architectures of displacement appear following food aid distribution as the construction of large-scale Gaza or Haiti pier by the US military or the activism of World Central Kitchen. Banks of food seeds are stored deep in the north beyond the Arctic Circle in underground architecture, and Amazonian settlements and rainforests get destroyed and transformed into arable land to export soya to Europe, China and India. That soybean vessels are directly linked to retailer shelves and our tables, is a common point — they either support animal feed and therefore raise of meat production or the vegan movement in the West. Even foods themselves when taken a closer look contain spatial shapes, colours and textures, and the physiological and spatial constitution of our inner stomachs changes over history and geographies depending on what we eat.
Departing from our direct environment, in this class we ask how Munich relates to food locally and globally. What can we learn by tracking foods starting from our bodies toward the city and its spatial food chains? How foods relate to spaces, materials, construction industry, architectural typologies, and changes in urban districts. What can these parallels tell us about the environment, politics, and colonialism? What can we learn by linking the most problematic or promising foods today (meat, soya, palm oil, tropical commodities, aquaculture, etc.) to their spatial histories? What do terms such as net import of land, agroecology, food security, food sovereignty, food utopia, food activism, whole foods, ethical purchasing, certification, food deserts, black foods, retail shelf distribution, agricultural workers, seasonal workers, food miles, biotechnologies, poverty rate, or shipment have to do with particular foods and Munich spaces?
Once established, we’ll explicify relations between foods and spaces through drawings, quantifying statistics, material investigations and critical statements, based on site analysis, understanding of the city, and the link with industry and commercial partners.
As the project is part of the Architekrturmuseum curatorial program and preparatory phase for the future exhibition, its results are framed through three phases: research, design of exhibits, and design of a segment of the exhibition space. To help facilitate the process toward an exhibition format, students are asked to attend an integrated seminar ’Critical Curating. About Architectural Knowledge Production and Exhibitions,’ which is an obligatory part of the master project.
References:
Carolyn Steel, Hungry City, 2008
Das Grosse Fressen, WWF Deutschland, 2015
The Zenú channels in Colombia, https://doi.org/10.21676/23897864.4052
Raj Patel, Politics of Food, 2019
Foodscapes, The Spanish Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2023
Agricultural Policies in Debate, Jorge Sellare, Jan Börner, 2022
Process and Results
During the master project, students will work together with the team and guests on three phases of convergence of design and research.
1. Research—Building Critical Proposals
Reserch is a fundamental aspect of the master project and runs all time of its duration. In the first phase, we will develop the following steps:
+ Document a food journal—complete personal diets and relate them to spaces in the city, CO2 production and a global route.
+ Research in Munich according to spaces/foods (a list is provided; other proposals are possible).
+ Specify pairs of foods and spaces, such as parallels among the construction industry, urban planning, infrastructure, buildings, materials and food chains.
+ Represent pairs of foods and spaces as a critical assessment of circularity reflecting on political, colonial, or environmental aspects, social awareness, and propaganda embedded in the presence of food in various spaces.
Methods:
Get in touch with industry and commerce-oriented partners.
Statistic reviews such as measures of CO2, measurements of spaces for food, percentage of water or import distance.
Field research in the city.
Interdisciplinary study—need for basics of agronomy to describe food cycles.
Task 1 Research
Drawing essay in the form of a statistical-spatial diagram (possible to include numbers, classification of spaces, isometries, data on materials, representation of circles, ideograms, storylines, and text).
2. Research—Exhibit
In the second phase, students will integrate drawing essays in proposals for their exhibits — a material installation or a model which aims to relate to the materiality of a researched case.
Task 2 Exhibit
Prototype of material installation or model (depending on a task) which integrates drawing essay.
3. Research—Exhibit— Exhibition Space
In the final phase, we will work on a design proposal for positioning all cases in the Architekturmuseum integrated into an auditorium/circle, by which student themes become a draft for a local public program (Munich Food Atlas).
Task 3 Exhibition Space
Auditorium/Circle
Drawings, 2-3 visualizations, and model OR exhibition mock-up (to be agreed with students during the process).
Formats for Studio
We will explore the following pedagogical format of exchange to enhance discussion in multiple modes from individual talks to collective conversations.
Desk crits: 20 min—30 min per single team.
Round crits: Walk around presentations and joint discussion; Students show storyboard (notebook) they fill out gradually.
Online exchange: 1,5 hours format consisting of 30 min. lecture by a guest, 15 min. Q&A, 30 min. moderated overview of student projects followed by feedback.
Site visits in Munich
Reviews
Food together
Collaborators & Guests
Dr. Martin Kussmann, Leiter Ernährungswissen & Innovation (EWI), KErn Kompetenzzentrum für Ernährung
(Competence Center for Nutrition) The Bavarian State Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry
Prof. Dr. Victor Muñoz Sanz, TU Delft
Andre Tavares, architect, curator and writer (Dafne Editora)
Matthias Faul, Urban Design TUM
Juan Benavides, architect and filmmaker (The Berlage)
Dr. José Luis Vicente-Vicente, The Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), Spanish National Reserch Council
Ko Nakamura, Keigo Kobayashi, Mamiko Miyahara, “Architecture Surrounding Food” a+u Architecture and Urbanism Magazine editors
Prof. Dr. Georg Vrachliotis, TU Delft
Excursions in/around Munich — a series of site visits (changes possible)
Honest Catch München
Viktualienmarkt
Munich Community Kitchen
Großmarkthalle München
Museum Brot und Kunst Ulm
HfG Archiv Ulm
Open Studio Format
We invite all interested audiences to join us for studio discussions and declare principles of inclusion, collaborative work and critical discussion.
For inquiries please feel free to reach: badnjar(at)architekturmuseum.de