'New Bamboo' an exhibition of works of Simón Vélez at IndiPix Gallery, B2/1 Vasant Vihar > 10am-6pm on 13th to 25th March 2015
Time : 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Add to Calendar
13-03-2015 10:00:00
15-03-2015 18:00:00
68
'New Bamboo' an exhibition of works of Simón Vélez
Event Page : http://goo.gl/cKTx5t
IndiPix Gallery, B2/1 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi 110057
DD/MM/YYYY
Entry : Free
Place : IndiPix Gallery, B2/1 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi 110057
Venue Info : Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'AIIMS(Yellow Line)' & Dhaula Kuan(Orange Line)'
Event Description : IndiPix Gallery presents 'New Bamboo' an exhibition of works of Simón Vélez.
Curator's Statement : Long before bamboo became fashionable in architectural circles, both in developing countries and the developed world, Simón Vélez (born 1949) made his first bamboo building at the age of 21. He had noticed how abundant was the growth of bamboo in Colombia, and how little awareness there was that it could be used as a building material.
Through experimentation and continuous application, Vélez has, over the years, drawn up his own vocabulary of bamboo architecture. His representational methods are distinctive, conjuring up their own unique poetic.
This exhibition is an attempt to show not only how ecologically important structural bamboo is, but also how remarkable is the body of Simón Vélez’s work.
In Colombia, where the principal architectural style is so often heavily influenced by references borrowed from the neighbouring USA and from Europe, Simón Vélez creates buildings that are culturally specific. The poor people of Colombia have always seen their native bamboo as a poor man’s material and would rather live in houses made of steel and concrete if they could afford to do so. Vélez is thus seen in his native country as a dissident, a rebel, who refuses to tow the line.
Vélez’s bamboo architecture shows us that stunning architecture can be built for all people, using this extraordinarily versatile material. His body of work has attempted to erase class distinctions within Colombia by making bamboo relevant for all. Amongst his clients are both the poor and the extremely wealthy, as well as government funded charities.
How little do these buildings cost compared to other forms of contemporary construction? And how long will these bamboo buildings last? The short answer is MUCH MUCH less, and they can last well over two hundred years with very little maintenance. Their relevance to a country such as India cannot be under-estimated: today, India is home to about one third of the world’s poorest people, and a few of the richest.
One astounding aspect of Vélez’s working methods is that he is perhaps among the last remaining practitioners for whom the human hand is the basis of an entire architecture. Some of the pictures in the exhibition show his trained artisans working on site with their hands, using low-tech methods of assembly. It is the more fascinating in the present environment, given that digital architecture is the predominant form addressed in the academic curriculum in schools of architecture across the world.
As the curator of this exhibition, my enduring entreaty to young Asian architects is, by all means embrace the new emerging technologies within architecture but do not neglect the extraordinary artisan traditions that we have in Asia. Rather, marry the old traditions with the new. My hope is that both traditions will prosper and borrow from each other, charging and infusing each with new energy, so that new forms of representation will emerge, ones that we may not have foreseen...!
Curated by Ajay Khanna
Related Events : Exhibitions
Entry : Free
Place : IndiPix Gallery, B2/1 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi 110057
Venue Info : Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'AIIMS(Yellow Line)' & Dhaula Kuan(Orange Line)'
Event Description : IndiPix Gallery presents 'New Bamboo' an exhibition of works of Simón Vélez.
Curator's Statement : Long before bamboo became fashionable in architectural circles, both in developing countries and the developed world, Simón Vélez (born 1949) made his first bamboo building at the age of 21. He had noticed how abundant was the growth of bamboo in Colombia, and how little awareness there was that it could be used as a building material.
Through experimentation and continuous application, Vélez has, over the years, drawn up his own vocabulary of bamboo architecture. His representational methods are distinctive, conjuring up their own unique poetic.
This exhibition is an attempt to show not only how ecologically important structural bamboo is, but also how remarkable is the body of Simón Vélez’s work.
In Colombia, where the principal architectural style is so often heavily influenced by references borrowed from the neighbouring USA and from Europe, Simón Vélez creates buildings that are culturally specific. The poor people of Colombia have always seen their native bamboo as a poor man’s material and would rather live in houses made of steel and concrete if they could afford to do so. Vélez is thus seen in his native country as a dissident, a rebel, who refuses to tow the line.
Vélez’s bamboo architecture shows us that stunning architecture can be built for all people, using this extraordinarily versatile material. His body of work has attempted to erase class distinctions within Colombia by making bamboo relevant for all. Amongst his clients are both the poor and the extremely wealthy, as well as government funded charities.
How little do these buildings cost compared to other forms of contemporary construction? And how long will these bamboo buildings last? The short answer is MUCH MUCH less, and they can last well over two hundred years with very little maintenance. Their relevance to a country such as India cannot be under-estimated: today, India is home to about one third of the world’s poorest people, and a few of the richest.
One astounding aspect of Vélez’s working methods is that he is perhaps among the last remaining practitioners for whom the human hand is the basis of an entire architecture. Some of the pictures in the exhibition show his trained artisans working on site with their hands, using low-tech methods of assembly. It is the more fascinating in the present environment, given that digital architecture is the predominant form addressed in the academic curriculum in schools of architecture across the world.
As the curator of this exhibition, my enduring entreaty to young Asian architects is, by all means embrace the new emerging technologies within architecture but do not neglect the extraordinary artisan traditions that we have in Asia. Rather, marry the old traditions with the new. My hope is that both traditions will prosper and borrow from each other, charging and infusing each with new energy, so that new forms of representation will emerge, ones that we may not have foreseen...!
Curated by Ajay Khanna
Related Events : Exhibitions
'New Bamboo' an exhibition of works of Simón Vélez at IndiPix Gallery, B2/1 Vasant Vihar > 10am-6pm on 13th to 25th March 2015
!['New Bamboo' an exhibition of works of Simón Vélez at IndiPix Gallery, B2/1 Vasant Vihar > 10am-6pm on 13th to 25th March 2015]()
Reviewed by DelhiEvents
on
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Rating:
it is so good
ReplyDelete