ignacio g. galán
[ igg - office for architecture ]

New York / Madrid
igg@ignaciogalan.com
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Chief Curators of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale: Lluis Alexandre Casanovas Blanco, Ignacio G. Galan, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Alejandra Navarrete Llopis and Marina Otero Verzier

After Belonging: A Triennale In Residence, On Residence and the Ways We Stay in Transit

Oslo (Norway) / September 08 -November 27, 2016

Being at home has different definitions nowadays, both within domestic settings and in the spaces defined by national boundaries in our contemporary global landscapes. Belonging is no longer just bound to one’s own space of residence or to the territory of a nation, nor does it last a whole lifespan.

Map of the curatorial Project by Lluis A. Casanovas Blanco, Ignacio G. Galan, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Alejandra Navarrete Llopis and Marina Otero Verzier. Drawing by David Jiménez Iniesta, Ma Ángeles Peñalver Izaguirre, Studio Animal (Javier Jiménez Iniesta)

After Belonging addresses and imagines the objects, spaces, and territories of a transforming condition of belonging. Global circulation of people, information, and goods has destabilized what we understand by residence, questioning spatial permanence, property, and identity—a crisis of belonging. These transfers bring greater accessibility to ever-new commodities and further geographies. But, simultaneously, circulation also promotes growing inequalities for large groups, kept in precarious states of transit. After Belonging analyzes the ways in which architecture participates and intervenes in both our attachment to places and collectivities—Where do we belong?—as well as our relation to the objects we produce, own, share, and exchange—How do we manage our belongings?

The Core Program of the Triennale is composed by:

-After Belonging: On Residence, an exhibition at the Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture (DOGA)

-After Belonging: In Residence, a program of intervention strategies and exhibition at the National Museum—Architecture

-After Belonging: The Objects, Spaces, and Territories of the Ways We Stay in Transit, a book published by Lars Muller

-The After Belonging Conference, at the Opera House

-The Embassy, a stateless embassy that represents, through cultural means, the ideals of “stateless democracy” developed by Kurdish communities of the autonomous region of Rojava in northern Syria. Conceived and designed by Studio Jonas Staal in collaboration with the Democratic Self-Administration of Rojava.

-The Academy, a forum organized by the Oslo School of Architecture and Design AHO, bringing schools and students from around the world into a global dialogue and knowledge-sharing experimen.

See more about the Oslo Architecture Triennale 2016: After Belonging in http://oslotriennale.no/en/2016

See more about the After Belonging Agency in afterbelonging.org

Design and Production Associates: Juan Ruiz Anton, Paola Simone García / Graphic Design: This is our work (Megan Feehan) / Design Assistant: Kamilla Csegzi / Research Associate: Jess Ngan / Assistant: Nick Oelrich

Acordeón Office Sidebar

  • About Open or Close

    [igg - office for architecture] is a design and research office based in New York City and led by Ignacio G. Galán, PhD. Our work focuses on architecture's role in the articulation of society through design projects, research, and pedagogical endeavors. The designs of the office have been awarded in competitions including the First Prize for the New Velodrome in Medellín and are part of the permanent collection of the Pompidou Center. The office was a finalist to the 2014 Iakov Chernikhov Prize as a result of its contributions to design culture. 

    We operate through diverse media and platforms and are continuously informed by different kinds of conversations and collaborations. Galán's research has led to the production of several publications and exhibitions including the installation Cinecittá Occupata for the 2014 Venice Biennale by invitation of the general curator Rem Koolhaas. Together with the After Belonging Agency, Galán was the Chief Curator of the 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale (Graham Foundation Grant 2015). He is also a member of the research project Radical Pedagogies and has co-curated its exhibition at the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Triennale and at the 2014 Venice Biennale, where it was awarded a Special Mention of the jury. He is currently one of the editors of the eponymous volume, forthcoming in 2020 by Sternberg Press (Graham Foundation Grant 2019).

    Additionally, Galán is an architecture historian working on the intersection of architecture, politics, and media, with a particular focus on nationalism, colonialism, and diverse forms of population displacement in the 20th and 21st centuries.

    Galán studied Architecture at ETSAMadrid and TUDelft, he graduated with Distinction from the MArchII program at Harvard GSD, and has a PhD in Architecture History and Theory of Architecture from Princeton. He has been a Fellow at the Spanish Academy in Rome and a Fulbright Scholar. He is Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at Barnard+Columbia Colleges and has taught studios and seminars at Columbia GSAPP and PennDesign among others.

  • Statement Open or Close

    We understand architecture as a key agent participating in the articulation of society. 

    We explore the ways in which architecture contributes to the definition of new ways of being together.

    We are concerned with architecture's relation to cultural transfers, material networks, and diverse forms of population transience in a global context. The relation of these forms of circulation challenge our understanding of architecture (conventionally associated with control, enclosure, permanence, and stability), requires new imaginations for our ways of being together and consequently remains a realm for further inquiry and intervention.

    We are additionally interested in the objects, media technologies, and institutions transforming architecture's individual occupations, its collective operations, and its diverse types of mobilization. 

    These emphases lead the work of the office and continuously challenge our methods of analysis and our design practice.