TATLIN NEWS #47

Thriller ArchiTecTure | Ø restad, Den- mark | BiG+JDS | VM Mountain Dwellings | photos by BiG, Jacob Boserup, Jens lindhe, ulrik Jantzen | text by eugenia Bakhturova Even two years after they decided to close the PLOT bureau in Denmark, its fame is still stalking its founders Bjarke Ingels and Julien de Smedt. Even though now they are working independently, some of their joint works are under construction. This summer a large en- semble in Copenhagen suburbs was finished, the first part of which, VM Housing, appeared last year and in August this year the object named Mountain Dwelling was finished. Several years ago Aaron Betsky praised one of their first objects – Martime Youth House – and called them post formal architects. Prob- ably one won’t be mistaken to say that even after the largest at the moment Danish bureau was closed, its founders, who are also united in the Rotterdam office of OMA, kept the para- digm of thinking. This paradigm lie in the fact that architecture is practically a literature-cen- tric art and at least, as the architects say, it should have a plot. A plot in architecture is a pretty tricky ques- tion. It hardly can be imagined as a story to tell, a concept or a philosophy. This is all too personal. An architectural plot is rather a root- edness in the context, in the history of the city environment and in the national mentality. This is why the architects who come to a foreign country to build spend so much time to learn the mentality, historical connections etc.

ТАТLIN news 5|47|64  2008   129