Jury statement:
In the invitation to the 2019 competition for An Architecture of Necessity the jury formulated its expectations in the following way: “Considering the most pressing issues of today the jury would especially love to see entries that deal with the rural context – reactivation of forgotten places both with transformation of existing buildings and with new typologies, for example combining living, work and ’freespace’. Like many others we are looking for an architectural language, developed for smaller cities and places integrating landscape, typology and details and materials”. As underlined here, “forgotten places” is a global problem. But it is also to a high degree a question which has been focused by Virserum Art hall from its very beginning 15 years ago. And the countryside and the future is also the theme of this year’s exhibition, Wood 2019.
On June 27 the winning projects were presented at the conference Wood Summit Småland 2019 at Virserum Konsthall. On June 30 the exhibition Architecture of Necessity, with chosen projects from the competition, was inaugurated.
Over 60 entries from all over the world have been sent in to this year’s competition. On a jury meeting in Virserum in early May, surprised by a late snowfall, the jury, after hard work with many good projects, most of them within the theme proposed, made the following choice: