Making design concepts in the nineties. Theoretical models of UN Studio

Abstract

Attending to the thinking of the second half of the twentieth century there has been a shift from the related-causal image of science to a kind of classification (the examination of local singularities), from closed disciplines to their in-betweenness, from abstract views to pragmatic, then in the territory of architecture from the direct representation of drawings to generative-organisational model of a diagram, from reactive-post-critical theory to a proactive and productive one. Pluralism and relativity has taken the place of dominating and universal modes of thought, discrete-networked models have been playing a leading role beside continuous-linear ones, as have digital aspects beside analogue ones, as blob forms beside boxes. The analysis of this change in the section of the 1990s can be made by the case study of the oeuvre of UN Studio. The architecture of Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos is important as it is the key example of the process of dissolving theory in practice. Illustrating their imaginatio n, buildings are being constructed parallel with the intended evolution and self-critical concepts of design and state of architect.