Historian for architecture lecture

Hans Ibelings, architectural historian and editor of A10 new European architecture, will give a lecture on 'Reviewing European architecture' on May 16 at the Aula Magna, Old University in St Paul Street, Valletta. This is the fourth lecture in the Architecture Nights (AN) series, organised by Kamra tal-Periti (Chamber of Architects).

The lecture will focus on reviewing contemporary architecture and developing a different view on European architecture and its history.

Ibelings studied Art History and Archaeology at the University of Amsterdam and worked as curator of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam between 1989 and 2000. He has been the editor of the yearbook Architecture in the Netherlands and architectural critic of De Volkskrant, a Dutch daily newspaper.

AN09 saw the participation of husband and wife team Franco Purini and Laura Thermes at the Malta Property Expo last February.

Eduardo Langagne Ortega, an architect with 35 years of professional practice in architecture and urban planning in Mexico, the US, Guatemala and Chile, also delivered a lecture last March to a packed hall of enthusiastic participants.

Rather than reporting on the latest undertakings of the all-too-familiar big names in architecture journals, A10 casts its net more widely to take in the many other interesting things taking place in the old continent, devoting equal attention to the architectural production in western, central and eastern Europe. The magazine focuses on new buildings and projects by tomorrow's stars, forgotten masters and unknown talents.

Recent developments like the expansion of the EU not only prompt a reconsideration of Europe's geographical borders, but also raise the question of whether there is, or there can be, such a thing as a European culture and, more specifically, a European architectural culture.

Europe has been divided throughout its long history and is still divided today - economically, politically and culturally - yet at the same time the continent is, more than ever before, in the process of becoming an entity.

There are identifiable areas in which a European unity is emerging amid all diversity and contrast. Architecture is one such area. Without dismissing the local, regional and national differences in culture, conventions and traditions, and without ignoring the significant asymmetry in coverage between east and west and between north and south, there is a remarkable consistency within European architecture.

There are all kinds of indications that architecture in the 1990s has set off in a new direction after the domination of the last two decades by post-modernism as a style or attitude.

This trend, which can be seen in the work of architectural names like OMA, Jean Nouvel, Dominique Perrault, Herzog and De Meuron and Toyo Ito, can be connected to a dominant force: the globalisation that is taking place in virtually every field.

One of the consequences for architecture is the erosion of the postmodern axiom of the uniqueness of the site whereby the context no longer seems to play an important role in an increasing number of designs and buildings.

In Supermodernism: Architecture in the age of globalisation, Ibelings argues that modern architecture has lost all contact with context: "An architecture in which superficiality and neutrality have acquired a special significance."

He sees recent architectural developments as symptoms but not leading indicators of a broader cultural shift towards more global, neutral and non-representational forms of art and exchange.

One might draw a parallel here with Malta. An extract from The Urban Challenge, the chamber's paper on the built environment, says that the economic, social and cultural developments in the post-war period in Malta, as in much of Europe, have been substantial.

Land use requirements, family structures and their housing expectations, and mobility have witnessed significant rapid change responsible for delivering a radical and ongoing transformation of the urban and rural environment...

The resulting shift in the environmental balance has affected air quality, water management, biotic support and the delicate symbiosis of the built and unbuilt landscapes.

As Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said at the opening of the exhibition Modernist Malta at St James Cavalier earlier this year, "...architecture, like other forms of art, is a reflection of society in the social, cultural, economic and political contexts of that time.

"Architecture is never static; it is constantly changing according to the needs and aspirations of every society."

Architecture Nights are being organised under the patronage of the Dutch Embassy in Malta.