Tag: Symposium

Symposium “Postmodernism Now: Politics, Culture, Context” at Design Museum London _ Saturday 30th June, 11:00-18:00

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Douglas Spencer, lecturer at the University of Westminster and the leader of the MArch Dissertation module, will be speaking at:

Postmodernism Now: Politics, Culture, Context

This symposium investigates the revival of postmodernism, and what it might mean for our current moment.

When: Saturday 30 June, 11:00-18:00

Where: Design Museum London

In this symposium, leading architects, designers, artists and critics reflect on the influence and legacy of postmodernism, and ask what the renewed interest in its ideals and values has to do with our own period of political and economic uncertainty.

Postmodernism emerged in the 1970s as the cultural response to the era’s shifting economic and political sands: the break with the mixed economy of the post-war years and the emergence of neoliberalism. This moment of flux was manifested in a culture that was colourful, ironic and self-aware. In contrast to the certainties of the post-war era, all became relative in an invigorating culture of permissiveness and free-floating signifiers.

The backlash began in the early 1990s when postmodernism began to be seen as an aesthetic aberration forever associated with reactionary politics, Thatcherism and the hyper-consumption it unleashed. Today, we are told that Postmodernism is back, with a slew of books, reappraisals, and a new generation of architects and designers advocating its principles of aesthetic pluralism, licentiousness and stylistic promiscuity. But what should we make of it?

This event has been organised alongside the exhibition ‘The Return of the Past: Postmodernism in British Architecture’, which is on at Sir John Soane’s Museum, 16 May – 26 August 2018.

For more info and booking: https://designmuseum.org/whats-on/talks-courses-and-workshops/postmodernism-now-politics-culture-context

Featured image credit: Al Yaqoub Tower, Dubai, 2013, by Adnan Saffarini, via Design Museum

The MArch Education Symposium 2018_Friday 16th March, 10:00-17:45, Robin Evans Room M416

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

VALUE

Inherently, the discipline of architecture seeks to respond to changing demands and societal concerns. Historically, the need to respond has typically been self-declared.

Even in times of disciplinary crisis, architecture has self-confidently declared the problem and prescribed the solution. Recent decades however, have seen an erosion of confidence, turning the discipline into one which could be seen to suffer, simultaneously, from external attack and internal doubt. Key shifts and turns within the construction industry, architectural discourse, and higher education have converged to set forth a trajectory that will be – for better or worse – transformative.

With the potential to either entrench or subvert the marginalisation of the architect, this trajectory will add fuel to the now familiar debate on the role and value of the architect. Given its importance in this debate, how should architectural education respond? How accurately can we value the range and possible applications of an architect’s skills? How can we articulate and constitute alternative roles for architects? How can design, as an architect’s core skill, be understood and practiced in a manner which deepens its value?

This inaugural MArch Education Symposium brings MArch staff, students, and invited friends together to explore the nebulous (yet contested) concept of value.

The discussions will inform evolving ideas on how the MArch might respond to the questions above.

Monsoon [+Other] Waters Symposium: 12th and 13th April, University of Westminster, Marylebone Campus, Room M416

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Monsoon Waters is the second in a series of symposia convened by the Monsoon Assemblages project. It will comprise inter-disciplinary panels, key-note addresses and an exhibition. It will bring together established and young scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines, knowledge systems and practices to engage in conversations about the ontologies, epistemologies, histories, politics, practices and spatialities of monsoon waters.

Confirmed key note speakers at the symposium are:

Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha: landscape architects based in Philadelphia, USA and Bangalore, India, whose work is focused on how water is conceptualised and visualised in ways that lead to conditions of its excess and scarcity, and the opportunities that its ubiquity offers for new visualisations of terrain and resilience through design.

Kirsten Blinkenberg Hastrup: environmental anthropologist based in Copenhagen, Denmark, whose work deals with social responses to climate change across the globe, currently centred in the Thule Area, NW Greenland.

When: 12th and 13th April 2018

Where: Room M416, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

For full programme and bookings please go to Eventbrite page.

Human Comfort – One-Day Symposium, Today 27th November 10:00-17:00, M416

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Human Comfort: A one-day symposium on environmental design and architecture

When: Monday 27th November 2017, 10:00-17:00

Where: Marylebone Campus, M416

Ben Stringer at Hyper Rural: The End of Urbanism, International Symposium at the MMU

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

On Wednesday 22nd November Ben Stringer (DS12), will participate in the Hyper Rural: The End of Urbanisam, international symposium at the Manchester Metropolitan University, as a part of the Designing the Future Rural; imagining the future rural landscapes, settlements & economies panel, alongside Stefan Petermann (OMA/OSA) and Dr Rosemary Shirley (Art Deptartment, MMU).

The symposium is partly intended as a response to the outcomes of two recent publications and research projects (under). It also aims to document the emergence of a radical new programme of art and agriculture and critical rural arts practices which, in turn, propose a cultural reframing of agriculture and rural development in the post-agricultural era. Including the New Creative Rural Economies initiative (and a conference proposed for 2018) which will further outline a wider strategic role for art, architecture, digital design and the cultural sector in support of rural regeneration and the Government’s (post-Brexit) Industrial Strategy.

Rem Koolhaas’ ‘The Countryside’ – Charles Jencks Award lecture presentation at RIBA in London, 20th December 2012. Above is one of the main slides where Koolhaas contrasts what he describes as the increasing hyper-Cartesian re(de)formation of the countryside, with what he also views as the regressive tendencies of the discourse of urbanism*, and the increasing whimsicality and detachment of some urban public art, architecture and design.

“Our current preoccupation with the city alone is highly irresponsible.. The countryside is now more volatile that the most accelerated city”

” Architects are attracted by contradictions ..we must also look to new ideas and new ways of thinking.. particularly when the old ways of thinking and working beginning to break down.. [at] OMA we look to the countryside and what is happening there is extraordinary..” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97yXB82nWc

The New Creative Rural Economies report. The symposium is also proposed as a platform and a response to the Littoral Arts Trust’s publication; The New Creative Rural Economies report (2018).

“What the BSE and FMD (Foot and Mouth) disasters have shown us is that agriculture and the rural are now also important cultural responsibilities and arenas and, as such, they also represent urgent new critical spheres for artists, digital media, architects, designers and cultural policy discourse.”

The symposium runs from Tuesday 21st to Wednesday 22nd November.

To book tickets: https://www.landscapeinstitute.org/event/hyper-rural-symposium/

WAS Symposium: Negotiation in Architecture, 27th March, 17:00, M416

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Negotiation in Architecture will be an open floor discussion with a distinguished panel. The aim is to look at the issues regarding negotiating design decisions which will lead to a debate on the current and possible future role of the architect within the construction industry.

The event will take place on the 27th March at 17:00 in Robin Evans Room (M416), Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster.

More information on speakers soon to follow.