Aedes: for 40 years a place for discourse

摘要

A gallery that was called into life by two young non-architects, by Kristin Feireiss and by Helga Retzer, who sadly died far too young. They chose the feminine Latin noun aedes, which means house, room or dwelling, pro-grammatically in order to present architecture for discussion in both existential and social terms. At the time when Berlin was dominated by the post-modernism of the International Building Exhibition, Aedes opened a number of surprising doors into both the present and the future of architecture by hosting exhibitions about the Smithsons, Peter Cook, Coop Himmelblau, Raimund Abraham, Rem Koolhaas, John He-jduk or Zaha Hadid at a time when many of these figures were not yet stars. Showing an astonishing feeling for the subject, Aedes discovered new faces and developments in the world of architecture and gave them a platform outside their own countries, perhaps for the first time and - perhaps even more importantly - offered a network of contacts that grew rapidly over the decades, and whose circles today cover the entire globe. In this regard the famous square catalogues - designed by graphic designers Ott + Stein -which have accompanied almost every Aedes exhibition from the start, also made an important contribution. This explains why now, on the occasion of the gallery's 40th anniversary, an extremely thick square book has appeared that manages almost entirely without text and instead shows mostly people from the world of architecture.