DEBATE PROVOCATION>>> The Chicago Architecture Biennial asks "What is the state of the art of architecture?” The ArchAgenda Debates aim to spark lively and candid debate on the direction contemporary architecture should take. What should be the agenda of 21st century architecture? "Is there such a debate? Before such a debate can commence we need to answer a fundamental question concerning our discursive culture: should we – the participants/ protagonists of architecture – commit/submit ourselves to a collective debate arguing about the broad direction in which architecture should progress?" [1]
DEBATE AGENDA>>> Patrik Schumacher, Peter Eisenman, Jeffrey Kipnis,Reinier de Graaf, Theodore Spyropoulos - Five celebrated architecture thought leaders will present position provocations/ manifestos that elaborate their respective convictions on the above debate provocation, keeping the historical focus somewhat narrowly on developments of the past two decades, and reflecting/ projecting on the problematics and values that drive design innovation today and in the next two decades. The speakers will debate, tread into one another’s territories and challenge each other’s assumptions and projections in order to unleash fertile public debate that inspires architects and designers to collectively question the architectural status quo, setting the bar high for future Chicago Architecture Biennial debates.
[1] Schumacher, Patrik. The Autopoiesis of Architecture - A New Agenda for Architecture. Vol. II. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
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Sponsored by ArchAgenda LLC, a Chicago Architecture Biennial Affiliate Program Partner
“If there is a debate in architecture today, the lasting debate is between architecture as a conceptual, cultural, and intellectual enterprise, and architecture as a phenomenological enterprise – that is, the experience of the subject in architecture, the experience of materiality, of light, of color, of space and etc. I have always been on the side opposed to phenomenology.” - Peter Eisenman
"The design disciplines - including architecture – must upgrade their core competency of ordering social interaction via spatio-visual communication and converge towards a new universal computationally empowered style: Parametricism – architecture’s answer to the challenges and opportunities of an increasingly complex and dynamic post-fordist network society." - Patrik Schumacher
“I have given up the effort to develop a position per se, which entails arguing what architecture should be. Rather, I have become fascinated now by what it is. I think of architecture today as being a discipline that enjoyed a very very very long and fabulous fanfare, one useful to know, but that in fact is now only forty-years into its actual first act. Two analogies are proving very useful to me as I try to come to grips with what that mean: the B-movie period of Hollywood, and the Cambrian Explosion of body forms.” - Jeffrey Kipnis
“Architecture is now a disruptive force in the context of a self-perpetuating system called building: a way of beating the system, a critique from within… As a result, architecture becomes political by default, as in the absence of an alternative, dissent alone comes to constitute a political agenda.” - Reinier de Graaf
"Models of the past cannot operate, as blueprints for our future. When science fiction has become fact architecture today has to move beyond representation, beyond the fixed and finite tendencies that declare what architecture should be and work towards what it could be. Architecture today must participate and engage with the information-rich environments that are shaping our lives by constructing frameworks that allow for change and embrace the unknown." - Theodore Spyropoulos
ArchAgenda's mission is to advance 21st century global architecture discourse and design through a unified, fluid and systematic approach; to generate and instrumentalize experimental design research agendas and computationally advanced design processes with potential to accelerate architecture’s fertile co-evolution with today’s complex emergent socialities; to participate in entrepreneurial design innovation; and to amplify through publication and media communications the movement towards a new framework and agenda for architecture. ArchAgenda LLC is the sponsor and organizer of Archagenda Debates.
The Chicago Architecture Biennial seeks to convene the world’s leading practitioners, theorists, and commentators in the field of architecture and urbanism to explore, debate, and demonstrate the significance of architecture to contemporary society. Visit the CAB website for a complete schedule of events:
chicagoarchitecturebiennial.org
#ArchAgendaDebates 10/5/15! Eisenman, Schumacher, Kipnis, De Graaf, Spyropoulos, 6th TBD! http://bit.ly/1HI6fvA #ChicagoArchitectureBiennial
Clear your calendar on 10/5/15 - It's the architecture debate of the century!
Peter Eisenman, Patrik Schumacher, Reinier de Graaf, Jeffrey Kipnis, Theodore Spyropoulos, 6th TBD! Six architecture thought leaders and provocateurs will debate "Setting the Agenda for 21st Century Architecture and Design" on opening week of the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial. This is going to be epic! Get your tickets now at archagendadebates.splashthat.com. October 5th at 5:30-9:30pm, Congress Plaza Hotel, in the "Gold Room", 520 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. #ChicagoArchitectureBiennial #ArchAgendaDebates
