Works of architecture consist of a material bearer and a discursive element that foregrounds and justifies some aspects of the physical thing while suppressing others. The goal of this course is to examine how the discourse does not only co-constitute architectural objects but also orients and delimits creative thinking in architecture by selecting paradigmatic cases, establishing themes, dismissing questions.
As our present concept of architecture is inadvertently constituted from the intersections and overlaps of ideological theories, representational practices, legal and financial structures, and discourses borrowed from the arts and literary criticism, the effects of architectural discourse on the design practice can be both surprising and problematical. Hence, it is important to understand how the discourse functions, how it is formed and how it may be changed.
Life is a hospital where each patient is dying to change beds. One of them would like to suffer in front of the heater; another thinks he could get better next to the window. Charles Baudelaire
This course examines the origins of the concept of leisure (for starters: how are the words “hospital”, “hospitality” and “strangers/guests” related to one another?) and popular authorities on the topic – from Las Vegas to Loos.
Guided herds of masses operating cameras and individualists in search of their true selves: the nomad, placeless and subjective view of the world of things has turned the tourist into the equivalent of the postmodern lifestyle par excellence. In order to make this lifestyle possible, places are made to attractions and history is stopped or reconstructed; all in order to save a certain moment and resuscitate a spectacle. However, the opposite has also been postulated: travel is not “leisure from theory class” but rather theory itself.
01.10.2013, 11:10 am - presentations of all moduls, Aufbaulabor
09.10.2013, 10:00 Uhr - presentation of "Modul Meta-Architektur", seminar room at Dept. Architectural Theory
16.10.2013, 10:30 Uhr - First unit, please see schedule.
