/.../ Let’s say you walk into the dark and stuffy lobby of a hotel, where the wallpaper is greyed from dampness and the suspended ceilings are terribly low. Really uncomfortable. You’re registered by a caretaker who has not seen the light of day for a while and invites you to follow him up the narrow stairs. He says, ‘You're very lucky to have the room where Bob Dylan wrote the song Hurricane’. You’re extremely grateful to the hotel employee for such a gift. You leave him a tip. The ‘ugly’ suddenly becomes ‘beautiful’ just because of this local legend. /.../

We invite you to explore the virtual exhibition presenting a text by Sigita Simona Paplauskaitė "How to Preserve Passion in Long-term Relationships. Communication in Architecture" accompanied by a photograph by Lukas Mykolaitis. The exhibition reveals authors‘ reflections on the diverse ways of talking about architecture, the modes of language, and the search for a common, non-speculative vocabulary that would help defining what cities and environments we would like to live in.

While exploring ways of talking about architecture, I wanted to talk more about their diversity - how the narratives created by society or its groups affect the ways we read architecture, and vice versa, how we subjectively recognize the messages encoded in architecture. Here, the use of the language of architecture itself becomes especially interesting, for instance, how the architecture producing and selling actors present the ideas about architecture to the societies. These are often manipulative narratives, which on the surface seem to respond to people's needs, but in their material form do not necessarily support the declared values of society, architecture and culture. All this leads to a broader reflection on communication in a broad sense and the question of how to discover that common, non-speculative, multiangular vocabulary that would help us communicate more clearly when deciding which cities and environments we would like to live in, says Sigita Simona. 

The micro-exhibition, in its “physical” form, took place at the cultural centre SODAS 2123 on the 22.September – 3.October 2020.

About “Building Narratives”

 In the micro-exhibition series, we present works developed within Architektūros fondas programme "Building Narratives" in 2019–2020. Creatives of the  “Building Narratives” programme explored the relations between architecture and narrative, when buildings aren’t shaped by mortar and concrete anymore – crucial and sometimes the most important ingredient is narrative. Whether it is purely a PR product or an organic construct it creates perceptions and shapes the way we see and understand our environment. Hearing, reading or assembling a narrative from smaller pieces helps us to determine if something is good, useful and even beautiful. At the same time, changing narrative has the power to change perceptions of our environment. Bad can become good, ugly-beautiful, all without any changes in physical structure.

As a new narrative has the power to transform architecture on its own, it becomes extremely important to understand how different ways of talking about architecture can shape its future. Therefore Architektūros fondas was seeking to discover personal narratives and encourage the creatives to get involved in this affair. Programme merged the ongoing projects of Architektūros fondas and their methods, while looking for common ground among podcasts and publications platform Aikštėje and Future Architecture platform creatives.

"Building Narratives" is also a part of the Future Architecture platform and European Architecture programme 2020, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. Architektūros fondas' strategic partner is Lithuanian Council for Culture. Partner – Kaunas 2022 programmes "Modernism for Future" and "All as One".