Ahead of this weekend's symposium “THE DEBATE”—which will take place in Kotor, Montenegro and will present the results of the Project Solana Ulcinj for the national and international audience of the KotorAPSS (Kotor Architectural Prison Summer School)—we present an interview with Bart Lootsma, co-curator of the Montenegro Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale.
The exhibition "Project Solana Ulcinj," co-curated by Lootsma and Katharina Weinberger and commissioned by Dijana Vucinic and the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism, features four proposals for the re-use/re-purposing/re-programming of a former industrial site in Montenegro. With an eye on not only sustainability, but also natural and economic viability, four firms proposed different spatial strategies to transform what Lootsma calls an "unreal man-made artificial and abstract landscape."
Lootsma explains: "What we do is make alternative plans that are neither completely preservationist and also do not propose to build huge hotels on the site, but open up different opportunities for sustainable projects—sustainable projects in terms of nature and economy."
"What I want visitors to take away is to realize that on the one hand, nature is not something that is opposed to culture or technology, but actually technology and culture are part of nature," he continued.
To learn more about the individual proposals for the Solana Ulcinj, see "Montenegro Pavilion at 2016 Venice Biennale to Investigate One of Europe's Largest Post-Industrial Landscapes." ArchDaily's full coverage of the 2016 Venice Biennale can be found at http://archdai.ly/2016biennale.
KotorAPSS Forum 2016: RE-USE Symposium and THE DEBATE (Project Solana)