Architects Matias del Campo and Sandra Manninger, former recipients of MAK-Schindler Scholarships for the Artists and Architects-in-Residence Program in Los Angeles, teamed up in 2003 to found the Viennese studio SPAN, which designed the Austrian Pavilion for Expo 2010 in Shanghai together with Zeytinoglu ZT. The team conceives of architecture as a process and works in the field of applied architectural theory, i.e. at the interface with research. Their projects are centered on future-oriented strategies of designing. These employ medial technologies and involve the development of architectural models from organic systems which are then placed in relation to each other via dynamic spatial programs.
For the MAK Gallery, SPAN planned a spatial intervention transferred into a black box. “Formations” will unfold its meaning in various scenarios consisting of models, animations and architectonic elements, providing the observer with novel insights into a laboratory of contemporary architectural production. The individual stations and levels of the exhibition, based on organic patterns of movement, refer to one another and oscillate between abstract, dynamic forms and hybrid structures.
