0:25 Introduction by Richard Sommer
8:48 David Van Severen presentation
1:41:45 Q & A
On October 8, 2013, the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design welcomed architect David Van Severen, co-founder of OFFICE Kersten Geers and David Van Severen, to present the 2013-2014 Kohn Shnier Architects Lecture.
Since forming in 2002, OFFICE Kersten Geers and David Van Severen has risen to international prominence with their projects in Antwerp, Brussels, Leuven, and Paris. Their work has included quasi-utopian city proposals, single-family houses, government buildings as well as exhibition designs and pavilions.
Kersten Geers and David Van Severen gained international attention in 2005 with two competition-winning projects: ‘A Grammar for the City’, a new administrative capital city in South-Korea; and ‘Border Garden’, a border-crossing between Mexico and the USA.
In 2008, their firm represented Belgium at the 11th Architecture Biennale in Venice. Two years later, they were invited by Kazuyo Sejima of the firm SANAA to participate at the 12th Architecture Biennale where their powerful installation “7 rooms, 21 Perspectives,” designed in collaboration with Dutch photographer Bas Princen, garnered them the Silver Lion award for the most promising young architect. An overview of their work, described by curator and editor Moritz Küng as “half modern, half something else,” was recently published in issue #63 of 2G International Architecture Magazine, which said that the firm is part of “a new generation of top-notch architects” to come out of Belgium.
For more information about the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, visit us at www.daniels.utoronto.ca