Visit our digital graduation show

A lot of people view it as a tradition to visit the graduation show at the Aarhus School of Architecture and experience the many beautiful and inspiring projects made by the new architects. This year it will all be possible without leaving your home. The graduation show titled We Do Architecture will as a reaction to the COVID 19 situation be an entirely digital exhibition, where the visitors can “walk” between rows of columns drawn by the new architects. The digital graduation show is a 3D exhibition made in collaboration with game designers.

“The COVID 19 situation is an obvious opportunity to try out a new and different exhibition format, the digital – a format which under ordinary circumstances is dismissed. An exhibition of architecture precisely consists of the encounter with physical drawings, models and materials. So, how can a digital exhibition replace that experience? The answer is: It cannot! But perhaps it can do something else”, says Karen Kjærgaard, curator and head of exhibitions at the Aarhus School of Architecture, and continues:

“The exhibition comprises of 80 columns, which the graduates have drawn specifically for the exhibition, based on their projects. The school forms the foundation of the space, and the students are the pillars on which the architecture of tomorrow is built. The columns thus become the support structure of the exhibition”.

The theme of the exhibition is We Do Architecture. Though the theme was chosen before the COVID lockdown, it now has taken on a new meaning.

“We Do Architecture was actually meant in the sense ‘we design, build models and experiment’, but now the title is also expressing a hope and an urge: We Want to Make Architecture. And the architects are ready to find solutions to problems that have not yet been put into words,” Karen Kjærgaard says.

A real commitment

The school obviously wanted to stick to tradition and put on the graduation show in person, but Rector Torben Nielsen still sees strengths in the new digital format.

“A lot has changed in the time span where the new architects have worked on their graduation projects. Their education has been disrupted, and the same can be said for the guidance they usually would receive in the process. New methods for collaboration amongst students and between students and faculty have been developed. In a way a digital graduation show is an apt reflection of the working condition the students have been put in since the 12th of March where all their guidance has been digital-only,” says Torben Nielsen and continues:

“A digital graduation show is also a way to connect the new architects to employers and others with interest in their projects. It is an easy way for a lot of people to see what our graduates have produced and what they are capable of. I am impressed to see how the projects show a willingness to tackle issues in our society. To me, that shows a real commitment to creating architecture that makes sense”.

The digital graduation show opens on the 1st of July at 12.00 on this website.