With Laura Holzberg and Alesa Mustar, the German Architecture Center DAZ has a new curatorial and artistic direction since this year.
While Laura Holzberg has already been accompanying the DAZ for ten years, Alesa Mustar joined the team in 2020. The two of them are dedicated to social issues on a social, political and spatial level beyond architecture. Thus, the new dual leadership started in September with a series of talks dealing with socio-cultural paradigm shifts and the related questions of equitable space production. They understand the DAZ as an enabling and discursive space.
“In terms of the DAZ, I see the idea of a Support Structure as something that provides a basic structure within which potential can be released. DAZ as a place for encounter and exchange, where current social and architectural issues are negotiated.” (Holzberg, curator and space strategist)
“Interacting with the public means being in constant correlation with our target groups, which describe a wide range: From academia, politics, construction to artists, activists and designers. We take up current processes and debates and see ourselves as social researchers with a resonance space – the DAZ – which may be a platform of expression and mediator.” (Mustar, curator and urbanist)
The German Architecture Center DAZ is an initiative of the Association of German Architects BDA. It is a laboratory of ideas, a place of exchange, mediation and debate.
The DAZ aims to feature alternative spatial practices: Humankind and the environment are placed at the center, architecture is seen in its complex social dimension and responsibility, and the city is considered as a reflection and negotiating surface for socio-cultural and political developments.
With exhibitions, installations, performances, workshops, and conversations, topics related to physical and social space are initiated, addressed, and discussed. Projects are developed in intensive and interdisciplinary collaborations – with institutions and actors from architecture, art, culture and the urban design – to enable an expansion of knowledge and impact.
