TAB2015 opening of TAB-Lab and TAB Symposium

Tallinn Architecture Biennale 2015 “Self-driven City”, in media partnership with Floornature, has opened on September 9 with the TAB-LAB Research and Development Exhibition in the impressive location of Kultuurikatel in the Tallinn harbour area.



The Estonian capital is home to the third Tallinn Architecture Biennale, started with the opening of TAB-LAB on 9 September in presence of Raul Järg, director of the Centre for Estonian Architecture and main curator Marten Kaevats. 
“Self-driven Cities” is a title which wants us to reflect about how the big technological changes will affect not only our way of life but the whole environment, asking for an answer to what is called the Fourth Industrial Revolution.





In this sense, the TAB-LAB  exhibition at Kultuurikatel, one of the four main events of TAB2015 with the curatorship of Helen Pau and Damiano Cerrone, SPINunit,  showcases cutting edge designs and processes. Furthermore, opens a forum for both creative and critical discussion on the social, political, economic and human dimensions of the current systemic transition. In fact, the term architecture is widely used in IT systems, too.



Thus TAB-LAB has been the backdrop for TAB Symposium, opened yesterday by the President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves. 
The first speaker was Prof. Carlo Ratti, who has shared his researches done at MIT Boston regarding the “Senseable Cities”, thanks to the technological process:  tracking of waste, car pooling, monitoring of environmental conditions thanks to images posted on Flickr and human interaction during certain events shown by the length of tweets. 



The importance of social media as open source indicators of human activities has been showcased also by Prof. Lev Manovich, founder of the Software Studies Initiative. We shouldn't forget about the various aspects related to the so-called “smart cities” and their vulnerability as regards IT security, topics mentioned by Estonian president Ilves and the British journalist and author Steven Poole.



Yesterday evening there has been the Award Ceremony for the Vision Competition “Epicentre of Tallinn”: the entry Enhanced Urban Movement byClement Lobbens and Frederique Barchelard (Denmark) has won the contest. The model of the winning entry along with other works of the competition is exhibited at the Viru Keskus until 30th September.
The Main Exhibition "Body Building" will be opened in the Museum of Estonian Architecture today,  Friday, September 11.
As forthcoming architecture is moving beyond common borders of the discipline, the exhibition is exploring new territories of building aesthetics and spatial qualities of self-driven intelligent systems, where architecture and science have entered into a dialogue between the computational and the physical - illustrated by 10 international architectural studios exhibiting prototypes and installations in the 500 m2 main space of the Museum of Estonian Architecture.

Christiane Bürklein

Tallinn Architecture Biennala TAB2015, www.tab.ee/en
from 9 September to 18 October 2015
TAB-LAB is open until 20 September.
Tallinn, Estonia
Images: Courtesy of Damiano Cerrone, Christiane Bürklein, TAB2015, Toomas Hendrik Ilves