Workshop around Yona Friedman’s Museum with building
At the Sculpturegarden,Geneva Biennale, Parc La Grange
Sat 08.08.2020, from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Yona Friedman's architecture is that of participation. He was skeptical of big theories and high-tech solutions. He invented systems that could be shaped according to users’ needs and desires, and which would have a minimal impact on the environment. Some of Yona’s structures were suspended in the air making room below for people, agriculture and nature. Others were mobile. They could be assembled, disassembled and reassembled, interconnected and appropriated by the users.

For Yona Friedman, building the city was above all a collective and creative enterprise. He rejected the modern drive towards technocracy and commercialization. To the plan, he opposed improvisation and flexible processes, which allowed endless experimentation and learning.

After a lifelong practice outside mainstream modern architecture, Yona Friedman emerges as a precursor of participatory practices in architecture and urban planning. Neither utopian nor populist, Yona Friedman's insistence on placing inhabitants at the heart of production of their habitats, is recognized as good practice. Participation or "consultation" are now part of any development project, at least in theory. Yona Friedman invites us to move from theory to practice by contributing, in our own particular way, to a museum without building.

During this workshop, we will take time to revisit Yona Friedman's ideas, and we will follow his invitation to imagine, quite simply, the city we want. Above all, we will take the time to listen to each other; children, adults, retirees, entrepreneurs, artists, newcomers or long-time residents, and imagine how the city we aspire to as individuals can come together as a spontaneous, dynamic and collective assemblage.

The "Museum without building" sculpture was produced by architect Nader Seraj, editor of Yona Friedman, The Dilution of Architecture, published by Park Books and Archizoom (EPFL).