Performance:

Coop Himmelb(l)au, Soft Space, 1970

The re-enactment of Soft Space (1970) by the deconstructivist architecture collective Coop Himmelb(l)au revisits a radical experiment in architectural performance. Originally staged on Universitätsstraße in Vienna, the work consisted of the rapid production of a temporary environment made entirely of expanding foam—approximately 1,200 m³ per minute over a ten-minute duration. Rather than constructing a stable building, Soft Space proposed architecture as a fleeting event: a volatile spatial eruption that grows, spreads, and disappears. By replacing rigid structure with unstable material, the project challenged the homogenizing and normative authority of modern architecture. Within Stavanger Secession 2026, the re-enactment reactivates this gesture as a critique of architectural control and spatial standardization.

• Coop Himmelb(l)au, architecture studio (founded 1968, Austria)