"Architecture is a tool to improve lives", says Anna Heringer, a visionary architect who is committed to the use of local materials and techniques to offer a better future. An omnipresent idea in all her projects and also in the exposition Anna Heinger. essential beauty, which opens today at the ICO Museum and can be visited for free until May 8.
Curated by the architect and professor Luis Fernández-Galiano and organized by the ICO Foundation, this is the first monographic exhibition dedicated in Spain to the German architect, for whom "sustainability is synonymous with beauty" and whose work is based on the exploration and use of architecture as a means to support local economies and promote ecological balance.
A selection of most representative works of the Anna Heringer Studio will accompany the visitor on a journey through different countries and cultures, to discover, as Heringer reminds us, that "what she defines the aesthetic and sustainable value of a building is that it is in harmony with its design, structure, technique and use of materials, as well as in relation to its location, with the environment, with the user and with the socio-cultural context”.
Anna Heinger.
A SUSTAINABLE WORK
The exhibition, which is part of the program of the Madrid Design Festival (February 15 – March 13), proposes a journey through the work and philosophy of Anna Heringer, She is deeply interested in the sustainable development of our society and the built environment. Also, the presentation of the projects is based on textiles made by women from Bangladesh that reproduce the plans and elevations of their buildings.
The exhibition is completed with texts (such as the Laufen Manifesto, promoted by the architect herself), photographs, drawings and models that trace an itinerary through the main projects carried out since 2006 by Anna Heringer, honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair in Earthen Architecture, Cultures of Construction and Sustainable Development.
Shelter at the Longquan Bamboo Biennale, Baoxi (China), 2016.
In all of her work, Anna Heringer applies one of the most important lessons learned in Rudrapur , the rural village in Bangladesh where he built her first project —the METI Rural School, Aga Khan Award 2007— and where she, today, continues to work and collaborate on initiatives for local progress: that the most successful development strategy consists of rely on existing and readily available resources and in making the most of them, instead of depending on external systems.
During her visit we will also discover other of her most relevant works, such as Three Bamboo Hostels (2013-2016), three bamboo lodges that were part of the Longquan International Biennale; birth space (2016), a mud cave built in the Frauenmuseum Hittisau museum in Vorarlberg (Austria) with fine clay textures made in tadelakt (the traditional Moroccan ceramic glazing technique) or the hostel of the RoSana center —awarded with a New European Bauhaus Prize in 2021—, in Germany.
The exhibition includes a space where different products woven by women of Rudrapur can be purchased (Bangladesh) thanks to the support offered by Dipdii Textiles, a collective initiative of Anna Heringer, Veronika Lena Lang and DIPSHIKHA – society for non-formal education, training and research for village development in Bangladesh. The full profits from the sale of these products will go to Dipdii Textiles for the continuation of its activity.