Mythische Konstruktionen

The cult and spirit houses of Papua New Guinea exert a unique fascination. In addition to their aesthetic richness, it is above all the socio-cultural ideas and far-reaching cosmologies associated with them that impress and have a particular relevance today. In them, the environment proves to be a large-scale cultural project, a physical reality and at the same time a collective narrative spread out in space and time. With the help of artistic and architectural signs, this could be taken up, changed and retold. The environment was understood as a habitat in which living people and numerous other actors – dead or as yet unborn humans, animals, plants, things, spirits, and mythical beings – coexisted and were intertwined through complex social relationships. These relationships and the shared world that emerged from them were constantly renegotiated, especially in rituals.

Michael Hirschbichler examines the cultural cosmos of various Papua New Guinean cultures in detailed analyses and with a multi-perspective approach. This combines cultural and social sciences as well as construction, architecture and spatial research. Based on this, Michael Hirschbichler develops a multifaceted spatial theory of mythical constructions in a transcultural perspective, which leads out of Western-modern worlds of understanding and provides a wealth of extremely relevant concepts for understanding and shaping a more-than-human world.

Dr. phil. des. Michael Hirschbichler (MSc Arch, ETH Zurich) received his PhD from the Berlin University of the Arts. He taught at ETH Zurich, directed the architecture program at Papua New Guinea University of Technology, and was a director of the Architectural Heritage Centre of Papua New Guinea. He is currently a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna.
Working at the intersection of art, architecture, and anthropology, his work explores how cultural, social, political, religious, and scientific narratives, myths, and ideologies shape our living spaces.
He is a recipient of awards from the Villa Massimo, German Academy Rome, Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, and Villa Kamogawa in Kyoto, among others.