ARCH+ Internship | Blog 01/2017 | Nils Fröhling

During the first two months of my internship, I worked primarily on the planning and implementation of the exhibition ARCH+ displays: Concrete Utopias, which will be held in November through to December at Schau Fenster in Berlin. The title of the exhibitions plays with the English word 'concrete', which in addition to the construction material, also means 'specific'. As such, the exhibition is primarily about the material concrete and its impact on modern residential construction in the 20th century, but also broaches its material characteristics as a pourable substance. Focal points of the exhibition are not only artistic and architectural sculptures and models, but also films and photos of social housing projects in Naples, Paris and Vienna built using this construction material. The sculptural work reveals the various material applications that embrace the qualities of the pouring process and also the resulting possibility of prefabrication.

For this project I worked on ideas for the suspension and structure of the exhibition and later the organisational planning. Through meetings with artists, architects and gallery owners, I was consequently afforded the opportunity to get to know them better and work on the exhibits in more detail. I also gained valuable insights into architectural communication through the exhibition format.

While preparing the exhibition, planning started on the next ARCH+ issue, which addressed 'The Land Question'. I'll be working on this project for the duration of my scholarship. The lion's share of the current editorial work is focused on content research and becoming acquainted with fundamental theoretical texts. Potential articles and architecture projects are proposed and discussed weekly by the editorial office and partners participating in the issue.

At the same time, other issues and projects, for example 'project bauhaus', or an upcoming touring exhibition are also being prepared in the editorial office. Consequently, in addition to my own work on the ARCH+ display and the upcoming issue, at an early stage in my internship I am also able to familiarise myself with a broad range of current architectural projects as well as various tasks in the individual phases of magazine production. On top of all that, on 10 October 2017, I attended ARCH+ features 68: project bauhaus – Foundation course, Workshop, Burial held at the HWK. This is part of project bauhaus, which runs until 2019 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bauhaus and critically challenges its ideas.

Nils Fröhling is a student at Stuttgart University. He was awarded a 6-month scholarship to implement the 'Concrete Utopias' exhibition project. This gave Nils valuable insights into architectural communication through the exhibition format. He also worked on projects such as 'The Land Question'