28 Aug 2017
Rafael Viñoly, Pierre de Meuron and Alison Brooks will deliver World Architecture Festival seminars
BY Kim Megson
A star-studded line-up of architects, designers and urbanists has been announced for the World Architecture Festival 2017 (WAF), which is taking place in Berlin from 15-17 November.
Rafael Viñoly, Pierre de Meuron, Alison Brooks, Sir Peter Cook and WOHA founders Richard Hassell and Wong Mun Summ will all take to the stage to deliver seminar talks on topics related to this year’s festival theme, ‘Performance’.
WAF is the only global festival that combines conferences, networking and awards – with the WAF Building of the Year celebrating new and future constructions around the globe. Architects, designers, commentators, historians and critics will gather together for the event to share their work, and to discuss the theme.
Among the scheduled talks, de Meuron will discuss his recently-completed Hamburg Elbphilharmonie concert hall with the critic Charles Jencks; Cook will discuss the role colour plays in establishing identity for performance buildings; and WOHA’s founders will explore how landscape design improves and enhances buildings and public spaces. Viñoly’s keynote speech, titled ‘Performance as space, time and architecture’, will explain how the concept of performance applies to his work.
Other names participating in WAF's 2017 seminar programme include Richard Francis-Jones, design director of Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp; Jacob Kurek, partner at Henning Larsen Architects; and Christoph Hesse, founder of Christoph Hesse Architects.
The full line-up can be found here.
Discussing the festival theme earlier this year, programme director Paul Finch said: “We will examine the multiple aspects of ‘performance’ that architecture has to embrace: aesthetic, technical, economic, and psychological.
“We will be discussing buildings designed for performance – for example, theatres and concert halls – but also the role that buildings play in the life and spectacle of the city itself."
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