The exhibition

Architectures liquides | Liquid architecture

For its second edition, the Bruges Triennial has invited the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain of the Centre-Val de Loire region (France), whose collection is focused on the relationship between art and architecture from the 1950s to today, to mount an exhibit in the church and gardens of the Grootseminarie. The exhibition revisits the efforts – repeated throughout – to render the architectural object and the rigidity of the right angle fluid by means of curved, organic and moving forms. It attests, in particular, to the rise to prominence of this new movement, starting in the 1990s, thanks to the development of digital tools for conception, production and construction. Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software now makes it possible to alter the structural properties of objects by manipulating mathematical models. The architect no longer draws: he or she continually modifies virtual models by altering their parameters. FRAC Centre-Val de Loire was one of the first institutions to record the appearance of this trend, known in turns as numeric, computational or digital, and where organic circumvolutions and continues surfaces come together. In turn, FRAC helped call into question an architecture conceived of as definitive, immutable form in favour of a “liquid architecture” (Marcos Novak) that is lively and dynamic.