29 june 2008 - 05 october 2008

Sigmund Freud regarded the dream as the guardian of sleep. The exhibition ‘State Alpha, on the architecture of sleep’ examines to what extent the same is true of architecture. Opening on Sunday 29 June, the NAI Maastricht is presenting an exhibition that offers an encyclopaedic approach to the architecture of sleep from many angles. The exhibition aims to stimulate visitors to reflect on how architecture organises our sleep.

In 2008 the NAI Maastricht is sketching longer lines at the interface of architecture and design, with the interior as the common thread. After a solo exhibition on the monk and architect Dom Van der Laan and the quest for an inner spiritual world, this time the theme of sleep is explored as a more psychological inner world, while the exhibition draws on such areas as film and product design to visualise the relation between architecture and that inner world.

Different aspects of sleep are examined in six chapters. Phenomenology of Sleep throws light on sleep, which is still an enigma today, by means of film fragments. Film experts Eric de Kuyper and Emile Poppe have composed a selection of fragments that show the rituals of falling asleep and getting up within their architectural context. The term Architecture of Sleep is used in medical science to describe the structure of the sleep process. In collaboration with the sleep laboratory of the Charité Clinic in Berlin, this chapter shows different kinds of observation by researchers. The chapter Science of Sleep compares how other (pseudo-scientific) expertises such as Feng Shui deal with sleep and its spatial effect on how we organise our bedrooms.

The chapter entitled Dream House presents a picture of how the market deploys the notion of dream house as a means of seduction. This chapter investigates not only the dream house within the housing market but the house as a symbol in the subconscious. The fifth chapter, Economy of Sleep, focuses on the opposition between sleep as a gift and source of vitality and sleep as a product around which an enormous market has developed – beds, scents, masks, creams, herbs, therapies, medicines… The final chapter, Sleep without Architects, presents several examples that escape the clutches of architecture. By focusing on the position of the homeless and in other ways, this chapter raises the role of architecture and the way in which it organises sleep for discussion.

Contributions to the exhibition from: Eric de Kuyper, Emile Poppe, Dick Evers, August Ruhs, Walter Seitter, Studio Makkink & Bey, Anna Jermolaewa, Bernhard Cella, Barbara Caveng, Tomas Eller, Peter Sandbichler, Astrid Seme, Roman Signer, Cornelia Sauter, André van Bergen, Yael Davids, Barbara Visser, Chris Kabel, and from the collections of the NAi in Rotterdam (a.o. Gerrit Rietveld), the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (Sybold van Ravesteyn) and the Museum of Applied Arts and Galerie Martin Janda in Vienna.

The concept State Alpha, on the architecture of sleep has been developed by Liquid Frontiers, namely Sabine Dreher and Christian Muhr, in collaboration with Guus Beumer. The exhibition design is by EventArchitectuur. The graphic design is by Experimental Jetset.

State Alpha, on the architecture of sleep is the first in a diptych. The second part, in collaboration with the Delft University of Technology and curated by Dirk van de Heuvel, will open at the end of October under the title Changing Ideals.

http://en.nai.nl/nai_agenda