Marjetica Potrč
Caracas: Growing Houses, 2012

Artist
Marjetica Potrč

Title
Caracas: Growing Houses

Year of creation
2012

Technology and dimensions
Building materials and infrastructure for energy and water supply as well as communication, dimensions approximately: 480 x 745 x 315 cm

Year of acquisition
2013

Acquisition of the foundation

As a sculptor and architect, Marjetica Potrč deals with architectural structures and social structures in urban centers. She processes her research in conflicting urban and social contexts in the form of drawings and sculptures; on the other hand, it develops projects with local residents and experts that aim to improve their living situation. A focus of her artistic work is the investigation of the differences between a city planned by architects and an “informal” city, whose structures created by its residents now determine large areas in the world's metropolises. While these areas are usually considered problem urban areas, the artist is interested in the potential of these informal districts.

In 2004, she used a six-month stay in Caracas (Venezuela) to study the construction methods in the “barrios” there and to explore the organizational forms of the essentially illegal settlements. Their conclusion is surprising: there is a strong social bond in the “barrios,” which is maintained primarily through verbal agreements within the neighborhoods. The districts have an extensive infrastructure, schools, libraries and medical care rooms, which, however, remain invisible to outsiders. Marjetica Potrč has found an architecture that is certainly suitable for opening up new approaches to questions of sustainable construction and the creation of shared spaces in a city.

The work “Caracas: Growing Houses” is based on a building that consists of two units that have steadily grown and finally grown together. Taken as a sculpture from its original context, the architecture in the exhibition space raises awareness of a different view of the unorthodox construction methods, the sometimes illegal infrastructural solutions for the supply of electricity and water and the individual design of living space.

Marjetica Potrč, born in Ljubljana in 1954, lives in Berlin and Ljubljana. Professor of Design of Living Environments at the University of Fine Arts, Hamburg.

Gabriele Knapstein