discussion

Architecture: Theory, history, politics

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So I’ve started a group called Architecture: Theory, history, politics on Facebook to act as a kind of decantation chamber for some of the discussions I’ve been involved in lately. Its main areas of focus are architectural theory, the history of architecture, and the relation of architecture to politics. We’ll see where it goes.

The group’s tentative description runs as follows:

This group aims to serve as a space for dialogue, discussion, and debate on the theoretical, historical, and political dimensions of architecture. Related fields — such as engineering, urbanism, and design — are also included under this rubric (though this itself is open to contention).

So long as posts pertain to these subjects and themes, all sorts of sources, input, and materials are welcome. A few additional guidelines might be appended in order to prevent spam and keep comment threads from being derailed, but these should be minimal.

Otherwise, membership is open.

Feel free to join if you’re interested, invite people who you think might be, or share it elsewhere. You can check it out by clicking the link above.

The architecture of slums

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A few ideas and a debate

Untitled.
Image: UGO’s award-winning project for
a concentrated slum in Dharavi (2013)
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The following are some introductory notes by Leopold Lambert of the Funambulist blog, followed by a transcript of the debate:

Last week, an interesting architectural debate occurred on Ethel Baraona Pohl‘s facebook about an award-winning project that proposed a hypothetical architectural project to relocate the population of the largest slum in Asia, Dharavi in Mumbai. The online comments, including the one on facebook, are not known to be the most appropriate place for deep discussions; however, this time, an interesting debate occurred between a dozen of people (some of them like Ethel, Fosco Lucarelli, Cesar Reyes, and Nick Axel are well-known from this blog’s readers), who could be said to all agree about the symptoms that can be detected in this project yet, who do not necessarily agree on what should be an architectural role in the defense of the victims of globalized capitalism. Since then, Ethel and Cesar wrote a synthesis on dpr-barcelona‘s blog, and I decided to add to it a few thoughts in addition than the entire transcript of the debate, in order to give it a form of archival (see at the end of this note).

This debate comes at a moment where I wonder what is this recent tendency from architects to draw things that they did not design. I explored similar considerations in a year old article entitled provocatively “Why Do Architects Dream of a World Without Them?” and I would like to continue such reflection here. Whether we talk of Gezi Park’s temporary structures built by the occupiers, the various standard elements of Chinese cities, or the now well-known Torre David (see past article) in Caracas, there seems to be a common need for architects to appropriate, in their own language, the eminent characteristics of these “architectures without architects.” Is it a strange unconscious means from them to retroactively claim an architecture that they did not design? Or rather, is it a way for them to understand the logic of construction/function of these spaces by interpreting them through a language that they are familiar with? This second hypothesis has the merit of a form of humility, recognizing that the role of the architect in his or her transcendental version, is not necessarily something that these structures lack. Continue reading →