Bergen School of Architecture

Bergen School of Architecture (BAS) is not only a school, but a space for continuous transformation, which approaches architecture as a social, material, and political practice. As a co-convenor of across, with, nearby, BAS is also a collaborator, contributor, and host for this edition, establishing relationships between artworks and assemblies that accompany the daily rhythms of the school.

Situated in former silo and grain mixing facility on the Sandviken waterfront since 1996, BAS has transformed this industrial building through teacher and student-led interventions, shaping an evolving environment for architectural learning. With areas that have remained intentionally unfinished, its concrete silos, vast halls, pier, and mezzanines offer shifting spaces for workshops, testing, building, and gathering.

The school’s Open Form pedagogical framework invites continual negotiation between people, materials, and the built environment, encouraging students and staff to adapt, alter, and reinvent their surroundings. This culture of collective ownership means teachers and students actively shape BAS with building projects and collaborative decisions that become a living curriculum. As such, BAS is an ongoing site of experimentation and adaptation that proposes mutual responsibility.

During this edition of the assembly, BAS hosts works by Prabhakar Pachpute, whose canvas mural engages questions of mining and labour; Joar Nango and Ken Are Bongo, whose Post Capitalist Architecture-TV explores Indigenous approaches to architecture and land rights, allowing for a shift in perspective; Koki Tanaka, who considers collective gestures and togetherness via a series of film installations; Susan Philipsz, whose sounds of lament reverberate trough the silo chambers; and Jana Winderen, with a mobile sound project that starts here and also moves between various other sites in Bergen and the fjords.

The school’s layered spaces remain open to re-interpretation and shared use throughout the exhibition period. BAS offers the conditions for encounter and exchange, connecting with and informing the assembly’s wider exploration of neighbouring and the collective shaping of space.