'Resources for a Future' by Anhelina L. Starkova
TAB24 in Print
All photographs are courtesy of Anhelina L. Starkova
The Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2024 (TAB24) was held at the Estonian Museum of Architecture last October and November under the theme “Resources for a Future,” as developed by head curator Anhelina L. Starkova. Last month saw the release of the exhibition catalogue, edited by Starkova, that also asks: What kinds of resources do we need for the architecture of the future? Here we take a visual tour through the print companion to Resources for a Future.
Although many exhibition catalogues are published to coincided with an exhibition's vernissage, such an approach results in an incomplete documentation, for such catalogues don't document the actual installations or the events that often go hand in hand with an exhibition. TAB24's post-exhibition publication means that, in addition to presenting contributions to the curatorial exhibition and essays, the 214-page book also contains documentation of the installation, the symposium, and the installation competition program—the three main components of TAB24— as well as the satellite program, which included workshops, conferences, seminars, and tours throughout Tallinn.
Photographs of spreads from inside the catalogue, accompanied by descriptive captions, follow, but for more information on TAB24 – Resources for a Future, be sure to read our interview with Ukranian architect Anhelina L. Starkova, who curated the exhibition with Daniel A. Walser and Jaan Kuusemets.
“By exploring architecture through different resources—such as materials, buildings, typologies, orientation, urban planning, and society—the biennale demonstrates how we conceive, design and build architecture today,” the introduction states, “and how we imagine the future to be.”
The catalogue comes with a poster (partially visible in the top photo) that includes “Mountain of Resources,” a photograph (also shown here) by Swiss photographer Javier Miguel Verme.
For the raw-earth installation Ornamental Records from Tallinn, French architect Emmanuelle Déchelette organized a workshop and studied local technologies, materials, and people for months. Starkova describes it as “emblematic of TAB24.”
A Building Repurposing Itself by pihlmann architects and photographer Hampus Berndston documents, in models and photographs, Thoravej 29, an adaptive-reuse project that was completed earlier this year and featured as a World Building of the Week in April.
The exhibition was designed by Starkova and Ronja Soopan, and was photographed by Tonu Tunnel.
Following the numerous spreads of installation photographs, the catalogue features texts and images on the projects in the exhibition, starting with A Building Repurposing Itself by Søren Pihlmann and Hampus Berndston.
With the lag between exhibition and catalogue, the latter includes photographs of the completed Thoravej 29, which notably reused every element from an old factory in Copenhagen in pihlmann architects' transformation of it into a community hub.
“All the resources [for Déchelette Architecture's Ornamental Records from Tallinn] were sourced locally in Estonia. The earth came from South Estonia, and the metal scraps were collected from construction workshops in Tallinn.”
The raw-earth columns and embedded scraps are evident in the photographs, though readers will have to imagine the soundtrack, in which “each column emits sounds that evoke the tonality or the shaping of one of these materials.”
In their contribution, Networks, Not Products, Belgium's BC architects & studies & materials and French photographer Alexandre Humbert “aim to inspire a systemic shift towards a construction sector that focuses more on bioregional materials.”
The catalogue features nine essays, beginning with one by architectural historian Triin Ojari that situates TAB24 within the wider context of TAB, which first took place in September 2011.
Other essays address themes from TAB24, such as circular architecture in “From Pioneer to Mainstream” by Kristiaan Borret and Jérôme Kockerols …
… and a bioregional approach to design in “LOT 8 PROJECT Renovation of Le Magasin Électrique,” an essay by Jan Boelen, artistic director of Atelier LUMA, on Assemble and BC's project for LUMA Arles.
