WORK — Architecture and Labour / RIOT

How does the economic system underlying space production impact architectural practice? Conversely, how does the practice of architecture impact the construction industry and housing crises? This lecture series, WORK—Architecture and Labor, seeks to illuminate obscured and too often ignored economic questions to address work conditions and the division of labor and class in the profession. How can the current architecture practice be reformed to operate on non-extractive principles? For instance, will bridging the gap between intellectual design workers in the office and the manual and executive labor force on-site offer a way out? What is the causality between land and material value and the organization of the office? Why is the profession so remote from labor struggles and poorly organized, with so few unions, badly negotiated labor contracts, and barely any self-management models? Asking candidly ‘who can afford to be radical,’ this lecture series seeks answers from thinkers, researchers, and practitioners to address power structures and labor in architecture.

Namita Vijay Dharia
Monday, April 8,  17:00 - 18:30 CET

Namita Vijay Dharia is an associate professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. She is an architect and anthropologist who studies urban political economy and ecology in India. Her work combines ethnographic methodologies and anthropological theory with the scalar, spatial and material approaches of architecture and design. She works across the themes of materiality and aesthetic studies, political ecology, labor studies, and planning and development politics. She is the author of the Industrial Ephemeral: Labor and love in Indian Architecture and Construction. Her second book length project studies the politics of rest in environmental and labor relations in Mumbai, India, focusing on the significance of urban and planetary rest.