AIT-Charity Chair 2010

'Appearance or reality?
120 years of ait. Much in architecture has changed in this time. What remains is the desire for the distinctive and the everlasting. The present is also shaped by a “second reality”. In a virtual world in a constant state of renewal, new architectural marvels seem to spring up every day. However, these visions seldom become reality. It is getting harder and harder to differentiate between appearance and reality. The Charity Chair is one of these illusions, too. It should confound the beholder. Only those who touch it, divine its true nature.' [Marte.Marte 2010]

[The architects were invited to alter the “ONO” wooden chair as they saw fit. They could do what they wanted with the chair, as long as it was for a good purpose. The chairs transformed this way into works of art were auctioned, and the proceeds went to a project for children in the South African township of Langa near Cape Town.]

Marte.Marte Architects Concrete Works
Galerie Aedes Berlin
December 1st 2009 - January 12th 2010

The team centred around Bernhard and Stefan Marte will put in a just as unconventional appearance at their first mongraphic exhibition in Berlin. If one is looking to capture the aura of their work, one has to let oneself in for an interplay of strength and vulnerability. The latter is often concealed by unexpected, massive gestures, which (re)define the local context, effectively creating order and tension in it. Behind this subtle spatial connections and emotionalisations open up by means of the distribution of light and materialisation.

Marte.Marte Architects
Monography, Springer Vienna, 2008

marte.marte have completed strikingly unique buildings in Western Austria, which has a rich variety of good architecture. In contrast to the typical tectonics of wood construction in Vorarlberg, marte.marte’s work is monolithic, also in concrete. And in contrast to the compact volumes of older and newer buildings in the alpine region, marte.marte also gives the surrounding and exterior spaces of their projects precise tectonics as well. Their spatial compositions – which are only block-like masses at first glance – receive their exterior dynamics from their interiors. Whether it be concrete, wood, rammed earth, metal or glass, marte.marte always purify the material with disciplined details that serve the essential spatial experience of light and shadow, open and shaded areas, narrowness and breadth as well as inside and outside. marte.marte features synoptic photo essays and text analyses that show the strong bond between the architects and the values of the region as well as their conceptual, sensual explorations into the realm of universal themes: section versus plan, weight versus lightness…, form versus life.

constructive provocation
New architecture in Vorarlberg
kub bregenz 2005

The exhibition Constructive Provocation was developed based on the initiative of Marie-Hélène Contal, deputy director and curator of La Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, and prepared and produced in collaboration with the Vorarlberger Architekturinstitut and the architecture theorist Otto Kapfinger. Constructive Provocation is an exhibition on new architecture in Vorarlberg. Located in the entrance foyer of the Kunsthaus, the KUB Arena defines itself as a space for dialogue, as a basis for exploration. In order to best bring out the qualities of the existing exhibition system of modules designed by Reinhard Gassner in an area setting, three Vorarlberg architecture firms were invited to participate in a small-scale idea competition. The architectural solution of the winning project by Marte.Marte Architekten adds two notable aspects to the exhibition concept: an original truck tractor as a symbol of setting out for new horizons and making room for the new and an illuminated ceiling that defines a variable space for the wide-ranging cultural and educational offerings.