Institut for [X]

Institut for [comfort, playfulness, humans, non-humans, loud music, drinking tea, making things, disassembling them, trees, human connections, activism, sound experimentation, village production, some quiet Sundays, the sound of circular saws, urban exploration, the unending festival, … X] has since its foundation in 2009 been a laboratory for bottom-up, hands on urban development in Aarhus, Denmark.

Centred on an old railyard close to AROS art museum, Institut for [X] was founded as the third large-scale “habitat project” by interdisciplinary collective Bureau Detours and was run for the first few years as an informal experiment for artistic expression and community exploration. In these years IFX grew into the multifaceted village of different communities, companies and projects working within the territory of IFX and branching out into the city of Aarhus.

In 2018 “bulldozer day” came, the truth, known from the start of the project that the territory will be developed into the new Aarhus School of Architecture and a municipal development of the wider Godsbanen area with a business park and housing. By then the self-described “community of egos and creative caretakers” had surpassed its own soft goal of 128+ members by far. Even though “bulldozer day” was inevitable a deal with the municipal actors was reached and development plans were changed. In the end parts of the territory were formally designated as a public park and only a fraction of the territory was used for the construction of the new Architecture School. Additionally, IFX was enabled to grow into new areas close to the original site – Institut for [X] Version.2 was born.

Today Institut for [X] is an ever changing and morphing community of 600+ active members, 90 studios & art-residencies, actors from schools to grassroots initiatives exploring the artistic, social, cultural and architectural idea of placemaking. The community is also part of the mycelium of cultural platforms, such as FLUKHX, Trans Europe Halls and STUN, that act on the same principals on a transnational scale.

Institut for [X] as an artistic, placemaking intervention.

Placemaking Principles:

The community is the expert.
You are creating a place, not a design.
You can’t do it alone.
They’ll always say, “It can’t be done.”
You can see a lot just by observing.
Develop a vision.
Form supports function.
Start with the petunias.
Money is not the issue.
You are never finished.

And “Rule 0 + Guideline 0” for community involvement:

Don’t act in a way that requires us to create a new rule.
Rent is cheap, but to use [X] you must contribute to [X]. (Ask around for inspiration on how to contribute.)

Based on these soft principles and similar to the complexity that 600 individual actors bring to a place the built architecture has been evolving over time. “Grow Architecture” and the principle of “the evolving building”, where the habitat gives the resident the right to change it depending on pragmatic needs and the passage of time, are central ideas to the structures that make up IFX. Sometimes literally, since much of the studio space is made up of temporary units, such as refurbished shipping containers that can move from place to place, depending on the evolving needs of the inhabitants. This ever-evolving structure is an expression of the ideas IFX is based on; an interwoven mosaic of evolving connections between people and place.

The Iceberg of cultural activities

An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open water. Only 10% can be seen above sea level. Similarly, a lot seems to happen at Institut for [X]’s site – but what you see is only a small percentage of the multitude of the things happening in all of the studios at the same time. For those who visit IFX, it presents itself as a place to grab a coffee, join a workshop or go to a concert. Welcome activities for the everyday. For those who decide to participate it becomes a pool of creative people, working on an ongoing stream of individual projects but also on IFX as a common effort.

Boards and keychains

Nine board members who are elected by the community, aging from 25 to 73, sit at the centre of IFX’s a non-profit governance structure, advocating for the common interests and shaping its future. In a place of evolving relationships the “informal” mediates the day to day of the neighbourhood. In a practical way access to IFX’s ecosystem of places is granted by keys. The keychain becomes the symbolic indicator for trust in people within the community. The larger the chain the more access one gets and more importantly, the bigger the responsibility for common space is.

sources: Haack Sophie/ Marteinsson Ari: This is X – the Encyclobedia, Aarhus, 2015 Instiut for X: https://institutforx.dk (last access: 03.06.2024)

Photo credits: Rafael Frederik Hendriks, Aarhus, 2023/24