Passagen Cologne 2014: BKULT Featuring Van Bo Le-Mentzel: Konstruieren statt Konsumieren @ AIT-ArchitekturSalon Köln

In 2012 the Berlin based publishers/curators/editors Ilka & Andreas Ruby established BKULT as an online platform for discussing issues in contemporary architecture.

Every two weeks a new question is posed and prominent guests are invited to answer “yes”, “no” or “jein”, and more importantly to justify their position and elucidate their argument. The platform is then opened to all and thus develops a discussion over topics such as “Does architecture need a quota for women?”, “Do we need more investor driven architecture?” or “Is recreating historical architecture harmless?”

At the moment BKULT only exists in German

For Passagen Cologne 2014 Ilka & Andreas have taken BKULT offline and are presenting the platform in a series of poster presentations in the exhibition space at the AIT-ArchitekturSalon Cologne. Again, and understandably, only in German.

Presenting a limited if entertaining and thought provoking insight into what BKULT is/can be, the posters feature a selection of answers from journalists, architects, curators and other experts to a small selection of the debates hosted on BKULT. Much as we approve of the decision to present the platform offline, we do feel it is a bit of shame that visitors have no direct opportunity to visit the respective debates online. Most visitors will invariably have some form of internet linked mobile communication device with them, and so a QR code or other simple link to the debates would have made the presentation, for us, more complete.

One of the debates presented is “Is cheap more attractive?” and in this sense the exhibition is also presenting Berlin based architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel’s Hartz IV furniture and his wider appeal to “Build More Buy Less.” In addition to examples of the furniture that has arisen in course of Van Bo Le-Mentzel’s project(s) there are also daily workshops during Cologne Design Week in which all can learn the basics of furniture construction and, by extrapolation, explore what for us personally is truly important in a piece of furniture.

As some of you will no doubt be aware we’re still not completely comfortable with the name Hartz IV furniture, but rather than discuss that again here we refer to our post from Van Bo Le-Mentzel’s workshop at Wien Museum during Vienna Design Week 2012.

BKULT Featuring Van Bo Le-Mentzel: Konstruieren statt Konsumieren runs at AIT-ArchitekturSalon, Vogelsanger Strasse 70, Barthonia Forum 50823 Cologne until Thursday February 20th 2014

And BKULT can be found at http://bkult.de