Negentropy, a violation of the universe's symmetry, a theory of dissipative structures and of new scientific knowledge produced in the 20th century upsets the order of values between symmetry and asymmetry, balance and unbalance, life and death, beautiful and ugly. They put the reasons put forward by Vitruve for choosing the notions of symmetry, balance, or homogeneity as criteria for beauty in architecture in crisis. Today, we will fully accept this new aesthetic field, to base architecture on a thermal unbalance and a climatic asymmetry and to explore physical, formal, programmable, ecological, and aesthetic possibilities. Thinking of space as an asymmetric atmosphere, with its cold poles and tropical equator, its cold and warm fronts, its variations in humidity and light. Architecture as meterology.
Philippe Rahm (b. 1967), architect, graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne in 1993. In 2008, he was one of 20 international architects chosen to take part in the 11th Biennale Architecture in Venice. Rahm has taken part in a large number of exhibits (e.g. at the San Francisco-MOMA 2001, Centre Pompidou in 2003, 2005, and 2007, at the Centre Canadien d’Architecture de Montréal in 2007, and Manifesta 7 in 2008) and has given several lectures on his work in venues such as Princeton University, Harvard University, and University of California Los Angeles. He was a resident at the Villa Medicis in Rome in 2000. Rahm holds a Master's degree from the AA School of London, and was a guest professor at the Académie d’Architecture de Mendrisio in Switzerland and at the EPFL in Lausanne. Website