Architecture Theory
The processes that shape large-scale built environments require critical analysis. Read through their social impact, bureaucratic and (proto-)digital design processes are understood in a multi-layered and intersectional way. This includes the critical examination of technophilic rhetoric of efficiency, rationalization, precision or function as well as the widening of actor circles or the consideration of consequences of architectural action. The urgent questions of our discipline concerning sustainability (also beyond technicist belief in progress) or diversity (as a real change of perspective, scientifically as well as in practice) are in the foreground. The questions that concern us are therefore the following: who produces which architectures with what (social, political or aesthetic) intention? At whose expense are they produced? Who and what is included or excluded? Which societal images are constructed, and what architectures are projected by societies? In teaching and research, we deepen selected questions methodologically and thematically, always closely linked to reading and writing practices through iterative text production and by approaching multi-perspective bibliographies and formats. Architectures, or better, spatial practices, shape environments in the midst of communities and societies. The responsibility this entails makes informed critical historical and theoretical engagement urgent.
Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister, 2023
Anna-Maria Meister will speak about "Coded Objects" in her inaugural lecture as Professor of Architectural Theory and Co-Director of SAAI on 10.7.24. This is not about the question of analog or digital, but about the design of our environment as aggregation of many things, whose form and impact we must critically question. Because the design of things, which in turn form architectures, is always also about shaping values - through aesthetic and material means. This means understanding them as the result of social, ecological, economic and aesthetic negotiations. This necessarily calls into question any separation between design and bureaucracy, as well as the assumptions of a "neutral" technology or innovative processes. Rather, it is about the substance of the narratives that have shaped and continue to shape such "coded objects"
Wednesday, July 10th, 7 pm
Fritz-Haller-Hörsaal, KIT
Are You a Model? explores the model as architectural tool and practice. The volume approaches architectural models not as categorical objects but through questions such as: What determines a model’s functions and agencies? When in the design process does it unfold its power and when has it served its purpose? Based on nine overarching questions, the book brings together interdisciplinary voices from architecture, art history as well as architectural and curatorial practice, and software engineering. 31 contributions interweave perspectives from various disciplines and geographies, and reveal surprising affinities rather than seeking conclusive answers. Models are thus not classified according to time of origin, genre, or material, but rather understood as an epistemologically diverse practice.
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We want to make architectural theory more tangible by exhibiting it, discussing and presenting it in Karlsruhe's urban space! To this end, we are once again inviting you to the Architekturschaufenster for "AT goes A SF": an evening in which we want to discuss insights, questions and ideas from our courses with students and guests. We move through diverse scales, categories and contexts: we will work on key terms of architectural theory, read critical theory, examine the different scales of architectural objects, examine the culture of bathing facilities, analyse architectures of political decision-making and visit the Federal Court of Justice, and, while "annotating" another study trip live in Italy, we will look into Florentine archives. In doing so, we understand architectural theory as a unifying critical practice – and look forward to a lively exchange!
Karlsruhe, July 9th 2024, 5-8pm
Tom Wilkinson will be presenting a paper titled 'Healing the landscape with shit and money: Wenzel Hablik's Notgeld' at Counter-Image Conference in Florianópolis, Brazil. The conference, organised by the Federal University of Santa Catarina Florianópolis and NOVA University Lisbon, is subtitled ‘Visual Culture and Ecological Thinking: reimagining relationships in the world’.
Florianópolis, 7-9 August 2024
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At this year’s EAHN international conference in Athens, both Anna-Maria Meister and Sina Brückner-Amin discuss materials as part of the roundtable “Data Narratives of Architectural Modernity,” chaired by Theodora Vardouli and Eliza Pertigkiozoglou (McGill University). Our collaborators of the Lise-Meitner-Group Coded Objects (FHI Florence) are present as well: Rebecca Carrai chairs the session “Media and Object of the Home” of the Interest Group “Building Word Image.”
Athens, June 19-23 2024
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This Thursday, our colleague Sina Brückner-Amin successfully defended her dissertation on "From Farms to the 'New Frontier': The Planning of UC Irvine's Educational Environment, 1932-1965".
The dissertation was supervised by Prof. Dr. Anna-Maria Meister and received support from Prof. Dr. Rembert Hüser, Professor of Media Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt, as a second supervisor. The project was funded for four years as part of the LOEWE priority "Architectures of Order". Sina Brückner-Amin's work reconstructs and analyzes the thirty-year planning history of a university campus in the Southern Californian desert using multimedia "paper trails" from institutional archives. Dreamed of as an educational experiment and implemented by bureaucrats, the work tells of the attempt to shape a new generation of "educational pioneers" in - and through - a built environment.
Since February 15, Sina has been part of our department as a postdoctoral researcher with a focus on science communication and strategy for the saai archive.
We congratulate Sina Brückner-Amin on this outstanding achievement and look forward to working with her in the future!
Cooperation with the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max Planck Institute
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We are very delighted to welcome Grazia Tona as a guest lecturer this Wednesday in the seminar "Crossing Borders. Reading Architecture“!
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How to futurise the past, and curate the future? Jaap Bakema Study Centre (JBSC) annual conference; Contribution by Mechthild Ebert and Anna-Maria Meister, saai Karlsruhe
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