Exhibition runs 1 March - 25 March 2018, LONDON, UK.

Exhibition venues:

Architectural Association (AA), Gallery and Bar
36 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3ES 

Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Practice Space
66 Portland Place
London, W1B 1AD

Linnahall, Raine Karp and Riina Altmäe, 1980
Landscape interpretations by molumba, 2018

Originally designed and built to accompany the Moscow Olympics Yachting Regatta held in Tallinn in 1980 , the Civic Hall (Linnahall) was a gesture to open the Medieval city up to the sea once more. The building bridged the surrounding closed industrial and military shoreline (the actual iron curtain) and for many, stepping on the building was the first chance to see the waterfront and glimpse into the open waters. To date, this gesture still remains one of the last truly public acts of architecture trying to tie Tallinn to its surroundings - the sea. The building has developed a life of its own by now. What used to be a concert hall and an ice skating arena, is now closed off from public, only its vast walkable roofs remain as a popular "hidden space". As a megastructure, it is too big to demolish, too big to restore.  It's monumental nature does not lie in limestone, but in the public landscape this limestone plinth creates. 

The mission - its repurposing  - is to understand if this current status can be accepted as a landscape of the built environment, a starting point. Can this landscape contain a sense of belonging, and not just exist as an off-limits ruin.. We believe this is Linnahall's true continuous trajectory - to become landscape. The series of study models reinterprate Linnahall as  potent landscapes.


The Baltic Material Assemblies

To mark the centenary of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian independence, the Baltic Material Assemblies presents architecture of the Baltic states, exploring the material, infrastructural and cultural connections that have persevered despite the political borders and conflict lines that have been laid throughout the region. The exhibition investigates futurity through its inscription into the region’s geology, infrastructure and architecture. Presented at the AA and RIBA, it reveals built space as a common ground for European unity.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are the only former Soviet states to have become members of the European Union. An overwhelming majority of the energy networks, mining operations and urban layouts that were instruments of the soviet industrialisation of the Baltic States remain functional today. The reconfiguration or dismantling of this vast space demands a new relationship between society and its environment. The transformation of the Baltic States is incremental, synchronised, negotiated on many levels and in many cases only made possible through the support of other members of the EU. Electricity grids, fossil fuel pipelines, nuclear assemblies, geological sections, minerals, landform buildings, insulation materials, and landscape photographs are assembled in this exhibition and outline the background to the new architectural commitments of the Baltic States. 

Project curators:
Jurga Daubaraitė and Jonas Žukauskas

Contributions by:
David Grandorge and Jonathan Lovekin, Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Jonas Žukauskas, Litgrid, Elering AS, Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas, Klaipėdos Nafta, Geology Service under the Ministry Environment of Republic of Lithuania, Agata Marzecova, Maroš Krivý, Emilija Škarnulytė, PMscreen, Kārlis Bērziņš, Niklāvs Paegle, Dagnija Smilga, Laila Zariņa, Selim Halulu and Stavros Papavasiliou, Jüri Okas, Kadarik Tüür Arhitektid, Raine Karp and Riina Altmäe, Johan Tali and Karli Luik (molumba), Oleksiy Radynsky, Ines Weizman, Hardijs Lediņš