KAIROS
emanuel dimas de melo pimenta
press release
2011. September

Architecture in the Space and Homer: a new Odyssey

NEW YORK. The architect and urban planner Emanuel Dimas de Melo Pimenta, who coined the concept of virtual architecture in the 1980s, is launching a new architectural design: an orbital building around Earth. To Pimenta - who lives between Locarno, in Switzerland, New York and Lisbon - "until now, we have had no example of true architecture in space. What we have related to satellites or space stations has been focused on tubular systems… a heritage from missile design". His project - an observatory of planet Earth open to civil society, which can also work as a new kind of hotel - has an enigmatic title: Kairos. He explains that "kairos was one of the terms to mean 'time' in ancient Greece, but contrarily to chronos, the word kairos means 'a global view of time', a holistic approach to a large historical period, for example". His building is totally tensioned, made of flexible antiballistic fabrics, with internal movable walls, is completely deprogrammable. "We could call it a water-building because all walls are filled with water; and it is completely deprogrammable, what means that the original program, the functions of each internal space, can be easily and quickly changed, at low cost", he explains. It also is a celebration of the fifty years of Yuri Gagarin's orbital flight in 1961. Like other of his architectural designs, Emanuel Pimenta proposes the building as an artwork: "it is an architectural design, a challenge in technological terms, everything surprisingly possible, a conceptual artwork, but also a series of drawings, digital images, a movie and a book". Contrarily to the space history until now, "Kairos is a project open to the civil society, a new approach to architecture, a questioning about a new civilizational leap in a world where human expansion is no longer possible… a manifest against war, a protest for peace and for human collaboration", he explains. Pimenta studied with Eduardo Kneese, the legendary Brazilian chief-architect of the construction of the futuristic city of Brasilia. He published about fifty books, and is responsible for projects like Amores - a floating island in Lisbon, Portugal; an experimental design for a transdisciplinary floating art building at Lake Maggiore, in Locarno, Switzerland; the Time Design Museum in Northern Portugal; or the design for the main offices of an art and science institution in Budapest, Hungary, among many others. His works are present in several museums and art institutions in many countries. His conceptual architectural projects have the objective to provoke reflection and unchain new ideas. "Thanks to bureaucracy and mediocrity, architecture is disappearing!", he says. Kairos will have several exhibitions around the world. The first exhibition will happen next September 10, 2001, at the Holotopia Academy, an informal institution oriented to music, art and philosophy, at Amalfi Coast, in Italy, founded by the Italian scientist Alberto del Genio and by him. The Holotopia Academy is located in one of the most fascinating places of Italy: Punta Campanella, few miles from Positano, which is the place described by Homer where Ulysses met the sirens, in the Odyssey. "I was looking for a magical place, far from our world made of wars and corruption", tells Pimenta, "so, we will have Kairos connected, in some way, to Homer! The exhibition at such powerful place, connecting thousands of years of humanity, has a strong symbolic character". Then, Kairos will be launched in September 2011 at the Streaming Museum, in exhibition curated by Nina Colosi in New York City, beginning a year-long tour through its global network of screens in public spaces, and can also be viewed at streamingmuseum.org. In October, Kairos will have a large exhibition at the contemporary art and new technology center Robotarium, created by the robotic artist Leonel Moura, in Lisbon, Portugal, who will be the curator of the exhibition. In November, the book Kairos: A Bird Orbiting Planet Earth will be launched at Amazon.com and distributed in virtually all countries.

For more information:
www.emanuelpimenta.net
www.emanuelpimenta.net/kairos.html

Streaming Museum: streamingmuseum.org

Robotarium: http://www.robotarium.pt/intro_en.html

biographical information about Emanuel Pimenta
short: http://www.emanuelpimenta.net/bio/ENPimenta.html
regular: http://www.emanuelpimenta.net/bio/Emanuel_Pimenta_complete_CV_2010.pdf

direct phone contact with Emanuel Pimenta: +41 91 7913911 or +351 91 9802813
email: luciana@asa-art.com

contact with Nina Colosi: info@streamongmuseum.org

contact with Leonel Moura: arte@robotarium.pt