22 kilometers of art, at the Timisoara Architecture Biennale | TIMPOLIS

Timisoara Architecture Biennale Beta 2022 brings 22 kilometers of urban route, spread over 11 districts of the city, which includes 140 works of art and urban architecture from all over the world.

The fourth edition of the Timișoara Architecture Biennale – Beta 2022 opened on September 23, with the opening of the main exhibition, Another Breach in the Wallcurated by Daniel Tudor Munteanu and David Tommaso Ferrando. This is exhibited in the Ştefania Palace (Piata Romanilor no. 1), an abandoned space inside a heritage building in the Fabric district, recovered by Beta 2022 as an exhibition space. The main exhibition brings together interventions that aim to demonstrate how the urban space (the environment where we meet, play, debate, protest, collaborate, take care of each other, etc.) can be produced by anyone given the right tools and agenda . Thus, not only architects and urban planners are responsible for these interventions, but anyone who, alone or in a group, adopts a creative and critical approach to the city, transforming the way it is inhabited: designers, artists, activists.

Distributed along an urban route of 22 km, through 11 districts of Timişoara, Another Breach in the Wall presents over 140 works from around the world and works by: Andrés Jaque, Brad Downey, Brandlhuber+, Cindy Sherman, Dan Perjovschi, Jens Haaning, JR, Matilde Cassani, NL Architects, Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Raumlabor Berlin or Theo Deutinger . Many of the works in the exhibition, especially those in the public space, are replicas that will be given to the city as a gift, allowing citizens to appropriate them as they please, while extending the biennale’s legacy beyond its limited exhibition period.

Starting from the curatorial idea that biennials are primarily intended to activate the cities that host them, the exhibition will establish relations with the citizens, who will encounter it in their everyday environment, along the urban route entitled “An archipelago of micronations”, which brings together 19 large-scale installations that aim to be enclaves in the heart of the city whose stories discuss some of the critical conditions that characterize the contemporary city.

Among the events of the biennial is the exhibition-competition Beta 2022in which the 25 works – examples of good practice in the field of architecture – and 12 photographic essays, selected in an open competition in the Euroregion (Romania, Hungary, Serbia) by an international jury, are exhibited in the public space of Timisoara , between September 29 and October 18.

Guided tours, indoor and outdoor, accompanied by artistic moments, will take place in the Fabric, Cetate neighborhoods, the North Station area, but will also target educational buildings: the building of the High School of Fine Arts (workshop of the avant-garde group Sigma and former Liceu Israelit ), the Faculty of Mechanics complex, work of the architect Duiliu Marcu, the University of the West, reference work of the architect Hans Fackelmann, and the building of the “Ion Vidu” National College of Art.

The guests of the biennale who will participate in discussions, round tables are the journalist and the architecture critic Philippe Tretiack, Liam Ross, co-founder of Esala A Projects, and Christopher Rothfilm producer, co-author of the project Architecture after Politicsthe architect Vlad Gaivoronschivice-president of OAR Timiş 2022-2026, the Archaeus Foundation, the initiators of the educational platform designed for vocational high school classes, arts and architecture in Romania Arhitect’tool and the authors of the project Triplex Confiniumwhich was born during the first Beta edition where the foundations were laid for the Euroregional collaboration between the schools of architecture in DKMT (the area that includes the counties of Timiş, Caraş-Severin, Arad and Hunedoara in Romania, the counties of Csongrád, Bács-Kiskun in Hungary and province of Vojvodina in Serbia).

During the event, documentary film screenings will take place, among them The Legend of House Habout one of the most spectacular architectural projects in Romania, Fair Play Daywhich presents the atmosphere of the Football Championship that has become a tradition in Fabric, and a series of films related to the theme of the current Beta edition, presented in partnership with the film festival UrbanEye – Art in dialogue.

Every Tuesday during the biennale, the public is invited to a series of Beta library activation events, where topics related to the biennale’s theme will be addressed and explored in the exhibition Another Breach in the Wall.

Until October 23, the biennial brings to the public various formats of events, both classical and informal and experimental: conferences and debates, workshops, guided tours, exhibitions, cinema evenings and book launches. The full program is available at https://betacity.eu/.

The event is organized by OAR Timiş, the Faculty of Architecture from Timişoara, being co-financed by OAR, through the Architectural Stamp, and Timişoara City Hall, through the Project Center.