Sabine Müller / Group XXV, Oct 07 - Mar 08

AH CA VA BIEN

3/7/08 to 3/9/08

MAK Center for Art and Architecture L.A at the Schindler House, 835 North Kings Road, West Hollywood, CA

SMAQ is an architectural practice that focuses on urban ecosystems. Partners Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau conduct urban research and design projects dealing with contemporary environments shaped by their underlying infrastructure. For their project in Los Angeles, SMAQ investigated a Los Angeles dichotomy: how so dry a place has come to be known for a “wet” lifestyle of green lawns and swimming pools. Building on an interest in exposing infrastructure as integral to urban life, they explored Los Angeles’ complex system of water supply and usage. For their final exhibition at the Schindler House, SMAQ confronted the engineering masterpieces of aqueducts and reservoirs that bring water to Los Angeles. They presented imagined tales of usage and functionality evoked by the systems’ overall invisibility, access restrictions, and technical facts. Taking these narratives further into the local scale, SMAQ constructed a water machine based on the functionality of siphons. Questioning water supply as abstractly reliant and always available, this machine explored water related infrastructure as an event and a social act.