Symposium: Criticism revisited
Saturday 28 November 2009, 1:30pm, Forum
Symposium | 1.30pm – 6.00pm
In conjunction with 25 years of OASE
With Tom Avermaete, Colin Davies, Chris Foges, Adrian Forty, Tony Fretton, Françoise Fromonot, Christoph Grafe, Johan Lagae and Kieran Long
Before certain reconfigurations in the field of publishing in the wake of the financial crisis, it appeared as if the taste for books and magazines on architecture was insatiable. Stacks of publications presenting architectural projects, lavishly printed and aiming at a large audience, appeared in station bookshops, furniture shops and museum stores. The apparent increase in popular demand for volumes presenting works of architecture as novelty has, however, been curiously matched by the marked absence of a critical discussion of their subject, explaining and examining the role of architecture as a cultural statement and an exponent of particular urban, social and political visions.
The dearth of architectural criticism, not only in general newspapers or magazines, but also on television and radio, has been a perennial phenomenon and also affects media specifically addressing the profession of architecture and its members. Architectural criticism has dissolved, split between a practice that has increasingly adopted a pragmatic attitude towards its own modes of operation and history on one side, and an increasingly inward-looking academic discourse on the other, which proposes itself as a critical court of appeal, but tacitly accepts the separation of making architecture from thinking about it (if not explicitly sanctioning architectural practice).
There may be many reasons for the disappearance of a culture of criticism addressing works of architecture, of urban projects as well as individual buildings: the demise of magazines, or the progressive acceptance of architecture as image production rather than as an agent of a larger social or political project.
An analysis of these reasons may be useful and necessary, yet it will not answer the question of how a culture of architectural criticism can be established or re-established. There is a need for a practice that is interested in the rigorous analysis of architecture, its cultural, economic and social context and the study of the formal and compositional questions of design as a cultural practice.
This symposium, jointly organised by OASE, Journal for Architecture and the Department of Architecture and Spatial Design, London Metropolitan University, is aimed at examining the question where the ground for a culture of architectural criticism could be found in the present circumstances and how it can be established.
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The event is open to the public. For more information or to confirm that you would like to attend the symposium, please contact the editor.
