November 23, 2024

Who's in town?
Rotor

Salt Beyoğlu

January 13, 2012 19.00

SALT Beyoğlu Walk-in Cinema

Rotor, founded in 2005, is a collective of people who share a common interest in how material flows in industry and construction can be better understood. While on a practical level, Rotor handles the conception and realization of design and architectural projects, on a theoretical level, they develop critical positions on design, material resources, and waste through research, exhibitions, writings and conferences.

In 2010 Rotor produced an exhibition on the traces of use in architecture for the Belgian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale and more recently they curated and designed OMA/Progress, an exhibition that proposes a portrait of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture at the Barbican Centre in London. For the occasion of their lecture at SALT, Maarten Gielen and Tristan Boniver will present a number of their past projects and the questions they have raised, giving an insight into what preoccupies the office today.

Maarten Gielen (1984, Ninove) started his career at the age of 15, selling decorative items and objects found at scrap merchants and flea markets to fashion stores and florists. Arriving in Brussels in 2002, he set up BSF to offer technical assistance using salvaged materials to small cultural organizations. Two years later, the association merged with the organizations of Zinneke Parade, where Maarten set up a program for the reuse of industrial waste. In 2005 he established Rotor where he currently works as designer, manager and researcher.

Tristan Boniver (1976, Brussels) studied architecture in Brussels at the Saint-Luc Institute, the Sint-Lucas School of Architecture and La Cambre School of Architecture (ISACF). Throughout his studies he worked as a graphic designer, consultant, and developer, both for private clients and associations and on projects in the underground electronic music scene in Brussels. A member of the Brussels collective Boups since 1999, he then worked with Maarten Gielen to set up Rotor, which he has been a member of since 2005. He qualified as an architect in January 2010 after presenting a dissertation on rounded corners.

The talk will be held in English.
Share
ADD TO CALENDAR