Paul Wiersbinski, Berlin – 2024 World Heritage Scholarship holder
It is decided! This year's World Heritage Scholarship is awarded to Paul Wiersbinski, Berlin, for his project entitled "THE PERFECT HOUSE".
The "The Perfect House" project connects the Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland World Heritage site with the Berlin Modernism Housing Estates one in Germany by interweaving urban Berlin with rural Hälsingland. The project was inspired by the idea of navigating through a perfect house and making an aesthetic connection to the historical memory.
The World Heritage Scholarship granted to Paul Wiersbinski consists of 50,000 SEK to realise his project, as well as the opportunity to stay for a month at one of the decorated farmhouses.
A total of 302 applications were received this year from 58 different countries. These applications related to many interesting and exciting projects that have in various creative and exploratory ways connected the Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland together with other World Heritage sites around the world.
Many thanks for all of these applications, and congratulations to Paul Wiersbinski!
The Jury’s motivation for World Heritage Scholarship 2024 – Paul Wiersbinski
The Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland are seven farm buildings, out of close to a thousand, that were designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2012. Farmers in Hälsingland began constructing substantial buildings and lavishly furnishing rooms for festivities as early as the 17th century. In time, more and more, and even larger, houses were built, reaching a peak in the 19th century. At the time, a single farmstead could have up to fifteen furnished rooms, even though only a couple of them were used on a daily basis. The ornate banquet halls and ancillary houses reserved for festivities are completely unique in their kind.
The Berlin Modernism Housing Estate was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2008 and consists of six residential areas constructed between 1910 and 1933, during a time when, socially, politically and culturally, Berlin was especially progressive. The buildings are an outstanding example of the building reform movement that helped to improve housing as well as living conditions through innovative approaches to urban design, architecture and garden design. Bruno Taut, Martin Wagner and Walter Gropius were the leading architects and, through their work, they had a considerable influence on the development of housing around the world.
Through his creative project entitled "The Perfect House", artist Paul Wiersbinski connects together the World Heritage sites Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland and the German Berlin Modernism Housing Estates by interweaving urban Berlin with rural Hälsingland. The project was inspired by the idea of navigating through a perfect house and making an aesthetic connection to the imaginary dimension of historical memory through the unique aesthetics of the houses and farmsteads. In Wiersbinski's eyes, both world heritage sites are also architectural role models while serving as social gathering places of their time with unique aesthetic qualities.
Paul Wiersbinski is a German artist living and working in Berlin. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. With its artistic collage technique, the work of Paul Wiersbinski finds itself at the boundary between art, science and technology, sometimes connected to artificial intelligence, entomology and cybernetics, and frequently seasoned with playfulness and improvisation. The collage symbolises the uniting of diverse components within a cultural or historical context, while also serving as a metaphor for the interconnection of global perspectives that, in the light of world heritage, highlights the universal value of places and objects beyond national boundaries and can thereby contribute to understanding and peace.
Paul Wiersbinski is awarded the 2024 World Heritage Residence Scholarship for reflecting in his "The Perfect House" project the same kind of diversity as evidenced by the cultural variety and integration of historical, architectural and cultural elements in the World Heritage sites.
