And Now the Ensemble! is intended as a challenge to architects, their clients, and commissioning authorities to understand and create urban development as a dynamic and collective work of art; in short, to make dialogue central to design. Design, atmosphere, and use can make every new building relate to its local surroundings. As a design process, this contextual expansion does not simply imitate the urban pattern, but interprets what is already there, to some extent modernizes it, makes the familiar alien by employing unusual atmospheric imagery, and ultimately transforms the accumulated chaos of soloists into an orchestrated whole. Pro Helvetia has commissioned this publication to accompany Miroslav Siks official contribution for the Swiss Pavilion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. ILLUSTRATIONS: 3 image plates.
