Summarize this in two sentences:
xploring the Concept of Ideal Spaces
ISWG’s most recent exhibition, The Heavenly City and Paradise, displayed at the central church in the German town of Karlsruhe in 2022, foreshadowed Utopian Disruption. Through images and text, it traced the evolution of ideas of paradise, from ancient images to contemporary futurism concepts.
Vrbn and ISWG have had a working relationship since 2015. Vrbn helped build 3D models that were part of ISWG’s display at Biennale Architettura 2016 in Venice, Italy.
Two years later, as part of ISWG’s Artificial Natures exhibition at Biennale, vrbn constructed multiple interactive 3D models of cities. Some were based on real planning projects, such as Patrick Geddes’s 1935 plan for Tel Aviv, which is an exemplar of the movement. Others were imagined or imaginary. These included Sforzinda, a never-realized Renaissance utopian city imagined by Italian architect Filarete in the 15th century.
Gehmann was intrigued by vrbn’s model of a Brazilian favela, or shantytown, displayed as part of the 2016 Biennale. Matthias Buehler, vrbn’s founder and chief technology officer, had studied the architecture of favelas, knowledge he used to begin constructing the 3D model in 2012. This initial project, done in collaboration with Cyrill Oberhaensil (who is now the software developer lead at vrbn), began as a hobbyist project. It was a way to test and showcase the technical capabilities of ArcGIS CityEngine. As with all vrbn work, the visualizations reflect an attention to realism, achieving a lived-in look rather than the gleaming architectural renderings typically made by most firms.
In 2015, an ISWG member learned of the project and asked Buehler if parts could be repurposed for the group’s 2016 Biennale exhibition project. The idea was for the favela model to serve as a counterpoint to the other examples on display, which followed a more conventional model of ideal worlds. It facilitated a deeper discussion of the urban and spatial qualities of ideal worlds, a core focus of ISWG.
The dialogue helped Buehler realize that although favelas embody spatial chaos, they also reveal something profound about modern cities.