10 Questions with Vytautas Buinevicius

Al-Tiba9 Art Magazine ISSUE16 | Featured Artist

Vytautas Buinevicius is an architect, urbanist, researcher, and photographer based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Growing up amidst the radical system change from soviet socialism to liberal democracy, Vytautas has been fascinated by the transition of space and the subjective emotional experience of space - what could be described as a phenomenological aspect of space. Trained as an architect (BA at Vilnius Tech, Lithuania) and as an urbanist (MA at TU Delft, The Netherlands), he has been working on urban planning, regeneration, participatory design, heritage transformation, reconstruction, commercial and private development projects. Over the recent years, Vytautas has been shifting away from orthodox design-based practices towards more interdisciplinary and artistic research, using photography and text as a more direct medium to research and explain the qualities of built spaces, objects, and their stories that are usually overlooked, misjudged, or underrepresented.

@vytautas.buinevicius

ARTIST STATEMENT

Distancing himself from the design-oriented architectural practice, Vytautas questions the role and impact of an architect in the age of rapidly rising climate change implications. “From building to appreciating” is not merely a personal manifesto but a proposition for a new professional ethos, a focus shift from the conceived to perceived and lived space as in the terminology of H. Lefebvre. By focusing on the architectural fringes, Vytautas is striving to reveal the qualities of vernacular designs, ad-hoc architectural adaptations, and mundane reactions to failed grand planning schemes and policies. These findings embody not only critique on professionalism and elitism in architecture but also celebrate resilience, creativity, human dimension, and the factual sustainability of non-professional design interventions as opposed to design trends, market-driven demands, and greenwashing.

Hypervernacular | Project Statement

Hypervernacular is an ongoing series of research on urban and rural areas in transition celebrating the ingenuity of non-professional designs driven by sincere care, the sensitivity of nature, “supervised decay,” pure practicality, and limited resources, unrestrained by mainstream or high-society architectural culture. Klenuvka is a representative of shrinking hamlets in Lithuania balancing on the verge of existence. The rapid post-socialist collapse of collective farming in the 90s left it only with the old or the hopeless, and now, with 11 registered inhabitants, it is either destined to become a weekend runaway for the urban generation with rural sentiment or fall into abandonment. A snowstorm working as an isolation mask highlights some of the most eloquent elements.    

AL-TIBA9 ART MAGAZINE ISSUE16

INTERVIEW

Let's start from the basics. You work primarily as an architect and urban planner while also doing photography. Who are you, and how would you define yourself as an artist? 

I'm just very interested in the phenomenon of built spaces. I often find it so fascinating that I can't wait to show it to someone through my own eyes. But is that even possible? That's my struggle, a driving force, too.
The title of an artist has a rather grotesque aftertaste in my experience as an architect. I'd say it is by 95% a hardcore management profession. One colleague once compared this profession to an addiction: it is so thrilling to create, to solve that puzzle and envision it, but after that, it's years and years of suffering just to make it build, and yet you do it again and again. After 20 years in architecture, I realised that it is the perceptive aspect of it that I care most about. Then photography is just a way more controllable, flexible, and immediate, less overwhelming media to "do architecture" than planning or design. 

Your architectural background and current occupation clearly influence your work as a photographer. But ultimately, what came first? Did you first get interested in architecture and later developed your architectural photography work, or was it the other way around? 

As a kid, I already had a somewhat perhaps exaggerated emotional sensitivity for rooms, spaces, materials, lighting, and ambiance. Then, growing up in Lithuania as it regained independence from the Soviet Union, I was super excited to watch this huge transformation in my home city of Kaunas with all this sudden influx of Western liberal culture and its attributes. I remember taking these long trolleybus rides to the primary school, watching new and never-seen billboards, shops, restaurants, and cars appearing every day. And how it all managed to find a place in the socialist architecture it was never meant for -- an incredible case of very swift and creative spatial (and social) adaptation. Later, through my studies and practice, I learned to read what I see. It helped to better understand these induced emotions. I've always been fascinated by photography, how immediate and instrumental it is. It's always been by my side, but now I really see it as a tool.     

The Hypervernacular project is interesting and reflects several key themes in today's discourse. What inspired you to start this project, and what do you hope to achieve through it?

In my practice I've been constantly learning to distinguish quality from pure design fanciness. Some years ago, I moved to a shabby inner-city village of Markučiai in Vilnius with old wooden houses and shags on a picturesque hilly terrain. I was amazed by the rich variety of buildings, spaces, greenery, materials, shapes, cases of reuse, and technical solutions that people have created with very limited means. I often found these creations gorgeous, ingenious, cosy and totally fulfilling by its function and ambience. And there was such a stark contrast to some of those very expensive buildings I had been working on. I was even envious of the creativity completely unobstructed by any architectural conventions and societal beliefs. Apart from pure aesthetic satisfaction from studying these objects and spaces, my mission is to make my contribution, however humble, in expanding the understanding of what quality of architecture really is about.        

The project focuses on the aesthetics of vernacular and non-professional architecture and challenges the traditional notion of what constitutes "legitimate architecture," as you mention in your statement. How does this perspective influence contemporary architectural practices and urban planning policies?

In the previous century, a certain wave of appreciation of non-professional architecture has risen as a critique of the modernist concept of a "machine for living". It eventually brought postmodernism, which embraced organic irregularities and human scale. This resonated well with the counterculture and ecological movements of the 70s, which brought such places as Christiania to Copenhagen. In the late 2000s, a strong wave of temporary use and DIY architecture emerged in cities like Berlin as a way for people to regain the city. It developed partly as a reaction to a global financial crisis. All these trends are present today, some of them have gained political and institutional recognition as legitimate incentivisedplanning practices. However, today, as the global climate catastrophe becomes more vivid and tangible, new voices are calling for anti-consumerism, a call to embrace low-profile wear and tear aesthetics. You could notice such trends in architectural design magazines. However, since our habits have already been globally shaped by all-encompassing commodification, there is a risk that this trend will become a gimmick, similar to the wear-and-tear aesthetics of fast fashion-produced jeans.

Gentrification and rural-urban migration are key themes in your work. What are some of the most significant impacts you've observed these phenomena having on vernacular architecture and local communities?

In Lithuania as well as in the whole of the post-soviet countries i.e. Central and Eastern Europe, we have an immense case of modernist concrete panel housing estates which were built to effectively move all the rural population to the cities to work in the manufacturing based economy of the USSR. Still, in Lithuania's main cities, roughly half of the population lives there today. It is really interesting to observe those places today and how essentially rural people have learned to live in them. The new urban generations have been born there. It is also interesting how people are now running away from these estates into the USA-like suburban areas, showing the craving for a private piece of land to barbeque on. Thus, the original rural areas with now derelict collective farming are either becoming summer residencies or dying out. It is all related, also on a global scale, from the neighbourhoods in London to the villages in Bangladesh, as Canadian author Doug Saunders beautifully reveals in his majestic research Arrival City.

Your background includes significant experience in participatory urban planning and community-based planning. How do these experiences influence your approach to projects like "Hypervernacular"?

I think that through those practices, I learned to accept different people, interact with them, listen to them, and understand their mundane concerns around architecture and civic life. I'm rather shy and introverted as a person, I'm not the charismatic street photographer type who easily approaches people. I also feel taking pictures of people is often ratherinvasive. I don't like that. However, occasionally, people approach me with either curiosity or suspicion when I take pictures in their living environment. Some people just want to chat, and I can easily spend half an hour  getting to know their personal stories, how they are related to the place, and how they experience it. 
Sometimes, when people get to know that I am an architect, they start asking me related questions, telling their problems with the municipality or house administrator. It could be like a city management therapy session and I usually just listen. I have patience for that and I get rewarded with lots of interesting intimate perspectives and details. 
But some people have approached me with strong suspicion and disbelief, some of them apparently have undergone political, institutional, systemic oppression or neglect and that has left scars. Sometimes humour and sincerity help in such situations, but some people just feel that some guy with a camera aiming at their shag house or crumbling panel house is just too off, too offensive to accept or justify that. Some people have called me a spy and took photos of me to report to the police or local gang leaders. You also meet people with mental illnesses.
Some people just feel ashamed of where they live, that's also very touching, they start making excuses why their house is not painted or something like that. In this case I'm trying to sincerely explain my fascination and tell about the amazingqualities of their house and surroundings, I compliment their creativity and ask how they made it. And there is always something they are proud of - it could be just an old acorn tree nearby, or maybe they have been living there for many decades and witnessed the early stages of the neighbourhood, or this is the first time someone endorsed their crazy choice of colours -  and thus we connect on the level of common fascination, we make friends. 
However, in many cases, I see people's homes as a mirror of their portraits. I'd argue that it could even be telling more than a portrait or a conversation, sometimes more than they would be willing to give away.          

On that note and based on your experiences, having co-founded the NGO Strategijos miestui, how do you see the role of non-governmental organizations in shaping urban environments and supporting community-based initiatives?

We know that NGOs can fill all the gaps left by the insufficiencies of the official institutions. There are so many niches. That is not an easy job, though. Because in order to be successful as an NGO, you have to be better, stronger, and smarterthan the business and the public sector of your field without the resources available to them. Without that, there is a risk of falling into a trap of what I would call self-entertainment. Many NGOs do that, and there are many one-time projects that just imitate help. They raise the stakes high and trigger community interest, but then once the budget and the interest isover, the people are often left with unfulfilled expectations and literally a pile of trashy "temporary structures" left behind. And then, when you approach the community the next time, people are angry and distrustful. It is important to note that once you enter that connection with the community and gain trust, you have to handle it with care and responsibility; then, you can do a lot. What I've learned is that the term of the project is usually way longer and the scope is broader than you've ever expected or planned, there is a risk of getting involved more than you can afford.             

How do you envision the future of urban and rural areas, particularly in preserving the unique vernacular architectures you study while accommodating necessary development and change?

I don't think they need to be preserved in the sense that the built heritage is normally preserved. By nature they are often rather fragile and ephemeral, that's why I find them so charming and beautiful. But I believe that we could learn a lot from them and cultivate a certain way of thinking about our spaces and our requirements for spaces, and learn new ways of more sustainable building and maintenance. I'd say it's an Asian approach toward preservation that fits better here than the Western approach. It's the attitude, the approach and the skill that is valuable, not the object per se.

When discussing urban and rural areas, we must consider the environment and the impact humans have on it, both through our mere presence and through our activities. Can studying examples from vernacular architecture give us good examples of how to coexist seamlessly and safely with our surroundings? 

Sure, these are the valuables to be taken from this source. There are also painful lessons to learn, especially about safety as we see in the haphazardly built favelas in Latin Americas, where we see torrents of water and landslides seizing entire neighbourhoods or the floods constantly washing away informal settlements from the beaches in Lagos. As always, the debt of the most affluent has to be paid by the most vulnerable part of the population. However, those informal settlements are probably the most resilient at the same time. They teach us that resilience is achieved through adaptive patterns rather than seemingly indestructible monumental firmness. I am afraid it is not so much about the romantic image of human beings living in harmony with nature any longer. It might become a very valuable lesson since we are all verylikely to become climate refugees in the not-so-distant future.     

Lastly, speaking of the future, what do you hope the future holds for us? 

I am always optimistic, but unfortunately I think it is quite obvious that good decisions have been more often catalysed by urgency and enduring pain rather than by reason. Unless humanity is severely hit, it will be sleepwalking to its extinction. I don't believe that technology will save us, but awareness and compassion might. At the same time, we have become immune to the sufferings we see on our screens while munching on our portion of delivery goodies. Our feet need to get wet, but I believe that the process of art-making has the power to trigger that awareness; with much less pain, we can get that sensitivity and appreciation. I believe that the expected change will have to happen internally rather than externally first.