PALACE OF UN/LEARNING - Laboratory for imagining architecture otherwise

2025 / 200m2 / DAZ Deutsches Architektur Zentrum Berlin / with Bernadette Krejs

We are at a turning point. Society and climate are in a deep crisis and it is time to think architecture otherwise in order to find multi-perspective approaches and possibilities. PALACE OF UN/LEARNING is a laboratory for imagining architecture otherwise, a space for discourse and action in which ideas for a more caring and fairer architecture are collectively researched, developed and negotiated.

The state of transition, the unlearning and questioning of established spatial practices, is not a sacrifice or a weakness. On the contrary, the still unknown and unfamiliar reveals previously unheard voices and possibilities for action. UN/LEARNING does not mean forgetting, it rather describes the beginning of an empathic turn towards a collective, diverse, queer-feminist spatial production.

The DAZ will therefore become a PALACE  - a transformative, joyful and open laboratory of space machines and objects of desire such as Furry Bed, Collective Skin Curtain, Hugging Table, Tentacular Being and Caregiver, which will create an infrastructure for a collective, tentacular knowledge production.
 
The international collectives EXUTOIRE, PARITY FRONT, MATRI-ARCHI (TECTURE) and MOULD will develop new perspectives and possibilities for action in the field of architecture as part of their residencies and public events. Together with contributions from our accomplices - including Afaina de Jong, MYCKET, Contextual Design (DAE), Andrés Jaque  and the students of the design studio Palace of Un/Learning (TU Vienna) - urgent and crucial questions surrounding the terms WE, CARE, POWER and WORK will be negotiated on site: 

Who is WE? - Who is actually planning for whom? 
Who CAREs? - How do we overcome the restless exploitation of resources? 
POWER - What’s good? What becomes visible and thus part of the architectural canon? 
How’s WORK? - which design and planning processes in architectural production do we accept?
 
PALACE OF UN/LEARNING questions normative and patriarchal spatial structures and advocates for an inclusive, intersectional planning that focuses on care and community as well as creating spaces for marginalized perspectives and diverse life realities. PALACE OF UN/LEARNING is a call for action - for an architecture
of empathy, solidarity, collectivity, multiplicity, circularity and generosity!

CURATORS
Bernadette Krejs und Max Utech

SCENOGRAPHY
Bernadette Krejs und Max Utech

RESIDENCIES
EXUTOIRE /Paul-Antoine Lucas, Bui Quy Son 

PARITY FRONT /Charlotte Malterre-Barthes 

MATRI-ARCHI(TECTURE) / Anna Abengowe, Tonderai Koschke 

MOULD / Sarah Bovelett, Tatjana Schneider, Christina Serifi 

ACCOMPLICES

Afaina de Jong, MYCKET, CONTEXTUAL DESIGN, Entwurfsstudio Palace of Un/Learning

DAZ ARTISTIC DIRECTION
Laura Holzberg, Alissia Hoffmann

DAZ KOMMUNIKATION DAZ / COMMUNICATIONS

Daniela Jung

SET-UP & TECHNICS
Efgan Fahrali, Kai Pfeiffer, Mumi Osmanovic

EXHIBITIONS GRAPHICS
Bernadette Krejs, Max Utech und Marie Gnesda

PHOTOGRAPHY

Louisa Boeszoermeny (pics 5,6,7), Rosa Merk (pics 8,9), Exutoire (pic 10), Miji Lee (pic 11), Silke Briel (pic 12)