Stilthouses and Bidonvilles by Arne Quinze

Design Miami 08: An exhibition of sculptures by Belgian artist Arne Quinze is on show at Wolfgang, Roth and Partners Fine Art as part of Art Basel - Miami Beach in Miami, USA.

Quinze describes the Bidonvilles as "shanty towns competing with skyscrapers... Social gravity pushes up the social mass, into the sky."

"The houses will extract all the energy they can from wind, water, sun or frequencies to satisfy their own requirements as well as the needs of their inhabitants," he says of the Stilthouses series.

The exhibition will continue at Wolfgang, Roth and Partners Fine Art gallery in Miami until 10 January 2009.

The following is from Arne Quinze:

SCULPTURES

Arne Quinze presents Stilthouses and Bidonvilles, his houses for the future as a parody on the way how people are living now. Cities are developing with a never ending stream of speed. Without thinking houses are built in a rapid tempo next to each other.

Those houses lack a vision of sustainabilty and functions of the buildings, streets, parks... aren't thought through. Bidonvilles and Stilthouses tranquilize or accelerate this process intentionally provoking open communication in a society of human interaction.

Bidonvilles are favellas, shanty towns competing with skyscrapers. Ground space will be scarce. Social gravity pushes up the social mass, into the sky.Was the air once the sovereign district of the wealthy and rich, it now has undergone a shift in balance and power.

Looking at Bidonvilles, a vertical osmosis of supressed building blocks, is experiencing the transparancy of people all living together and interacting again in what once was just an individual society.

Stilthouses generate architecture as they are layered and hierarchical by design. Everything goes faster here, people build without thinking about it. We'll live above and around each other. The houses will extract all the energy the can from wind, water, sun or frequencies to satisfy their own requirements as well as the needs of their inhabitants.

Communal activities flourish and social cohesion is the norm as public spaces are the only free spaces left to enjoy nature. Stilthouses protect their inhabitants but contradictorily stimulate openeness and intermingle different views and groups in society.