Villa Illudere - Portrait of an Impostor

Architecture is a constant dance with imposture. Based on this initially critical view on the architectural practice, the project at the interface between art, theatre, literature and architecture, develops a possible field of action for politically motivated design and its effective introduction into public debates on urban development.

Every architectural project begins with the risk of the (im-) possible. While trying to extend its limits, the architectural project’s complexity constrains the profession to frequently unkeepable assurances: The architect becomes an impostor his or of her own knowledge. ‘Villa Illudere’ tries to fructify this critical view: With its approach of linking a literary portrait of a fictitious impostor with an artistic-performative intervention, an architectural design and finally exhibiting the results as real events, the work already in its structure reveals impostor-like megalomania. The literary portrait describes the events around ‘Villa Illudere’ from the first-person perspective and draws a refining portrait of the impostor Olcay Voigt: While observing and listening to the conversations of an architect, he realized that architecture and imposture are related. Unable to afford a flat in the affluent southwest of Berlin, he sees his chance: by acquiring investors, buyers and tenants for the project ‘Villa Illudere’ of the fictitious housing cooperative ‘Arkadia’, he plans to make his dream come true. First, the narrator is asked to plan the villa, soon however the fraud becomes clear: The drawings never are paid and the narrator finds himself as a witness in a court hearing. Subsequently a short lasting friendship develops - but due to another fraud Olcay has to disappear again. In his apartment the narrator then discovers various documents for an information event for ‘Villa Illudere’. After the narrator decided to take over Olcay's role, the last chapters then describes both, the controversial event and the villa, a hybrid complex of theatre, business and residential use in the guise of a large-scale villa. Presented as a real building project, the villa provokes a discussion on the socially just redensification of Berlin and addresses problems such as market-driven real estate development or the NIMBY-effect. The archive documents, images, text fragments, models and drawings were then presented in an exhibition that blurred fact and fiction.