10th Rencontres de l'EDAR: Autonomy and Abstraction
Event details
| Date | 12.05.2026 › 13.05.2026 |
| Hour | 08:30 › 20:00 |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | French, English |
Les Rencontres de l'EDAR is the annual meeting of the Doctoral program in Architecture and Sciences of the City, aimed at gathering the entire EDAR community. Its 10th edition, organized in collaboration with the Institute of Architecture, will be entitled Autonomy and Abstraction and will deal two fundamental dimensions of scholarly inquiry. The two days event, open to the public, will be structured in the form of thematic sessions alternating with keynotes and round tables.
Abstraction will be approached in its classical philosophical meaning, consistent with the view that understanding requires the mind to grasp the universal apart from the particulars in which it is embodied. In this sense, abstraction is the mental operation through which the essential structure of a subject is drawn out from its contingent features, allowing researchers to discern the general principles that render their object intelligible. This conceptual withdrawal does not negate the concrete but clarifies what endures beyond the variability of specific instances.
Autonomy will be presented as a distinct yet complementary notion: the capacity of a discipline to reflect upon itself through its own internal laws and modes of reasoning. It entails a temporary suspension of external frameworks so that the discipline may be understood from within, according to the coherence of its concepts and the logic that shapes its questions. While abstraction deals with the apprehension of universal principles, autonomy has to do with the conditions under which these principles operate within a disciplinary horizon.
Once defined as separate notions, abstraction and autonomy will be brought into constructive relation, for both require a measured intellectual distance that enables the essential to be articulated. In this context, participants will be invited to suspend, for a moment, the temporal and spatial dimensions that ordinarily situate their work, in order to concentrate on the internal logics that define it. The possibility of abstraction and autonomy will be explored not as a doctrine but as an open interpretative field through which doctoral researchers may examine their subjects at the level of foundational assumptions and operative laws.
These Rencontres will emphasise that both abstraction and autonomy admit multiple interpretations, each opening further avenues for reflection. Their plurality will form the ground of the collective discussion. Participants will therefore be encouraged not only to explore but to present the internal laws and guiding principles that structure their research, testing how their projects appear when considered within a horizon freed, temporarily, from external contingencies.
12 May 2026, AAC 120
8:30 Introduction: Elena Cogato Lanza (EDAR) and Nicola Braghieri (LAPIS)
9:00 KEYNOTE. "Abstraction and Autonomy in Architecture" by Pier Vittorio Aureli (TPOD) and debate.
10:15 Coffee Break
10:45-12h35 SESSION 1. Between structures and practices
Chloé MONTAVON (LASUR), La Place des Jeunes Femmes Dans l’Espace Public.
Constantinos MARCOU (TPOD), Beds by the Sea: Horace Gifford’s Fire Island Villas.
Sofía GONZÁLEZ JIMÉNEZ (LASUR), Digital Motility: Rethinking Mobility Beyond the Physical.
Debate with Sarah NICHOLS (THEMA) & Alfredo THIERMANN (HITAM)
12:35 Lunch break
13:45-15:05 SESSION 2. Visualizations
Filippo FANCIOTTI (LAPIS), The Autonomy of Digital Visualization for Decoding Analog Abstraction.
Ella NEUMAIER (HITAM), Functions of a Flowerpot: (Col)lapsed “Image-Worlds” at BASF Agricultural Testing Station Limburgerhof.
Debate with Vincent KAUFMANN (LASUR) & Stefana PARASCHO (CRCL)
15:10-16:30 SESSION 3. Statistics as abstraction
Martin PEIKERT (FAR), Abstraction as a Condition for Autonomy? Architecture Competitions in Switzerland Through the Lens of Quantitative Analysis.
Lucie PALANCHÉ (LASUR), Acceptabilité Sociale de Mesures Pour Réduire l’Utilisation de la Voiture à Genève.
Debate with Claudia BINDER (HERUS) & Aziza CHAOUNI (SONO).
16:30 Coffee break
17:00-18:30 LECTURE. "Who creates abstractly?" by Martin RUEFF (Department of Modern French Language and Literature, University of Geneva).
13 May 2026, AAC 020
8:45-10:35 SESSION 4. Flows and Mobilities
Jules GRANDVILLEMIN (LASUR), Autonomy and Abstraction of Geography and Sociology to Frame Sustainable Mobility Potential.
Ga In SIM (LDM), Friction as Form: Abstraction and Autonomy in Neighborhood Circular Urbanism.
Clément Luc RAMES (LASUR), Approximating complex sociotechnical systems.
Debate with Florence GRAEZER BIDEAU (HAT) & Elena COGATO LANZA (Lab-U).
10: 35 Coffee break
11:00-12h20 SESSION 5. Which Autonomy for Architecture ?
Reda BERRADA (LAPIS), Counter-Abstraction: the Persistence of Vernacular Architecture in Moroccan Archival Memory.
Tiffanie PARÉ (THEMA), Autonomy and Abstraction in Construction Bureaucracy: the Case of Zschokke in the Twentieth-Century Infrastructural Landscape.
Debate with Jerôme BAUDRY (LHST) & Isabella DI LENARDO (LASUR).
12:20 Welcome aperitif for Professor Cammy Brothers (at Espace Copernic)
13:30-15:20 SESSION 6. Models and Institutions
Theodora GIOVANAZZI (TPOD), Privacy Codified: Domestic Space, Typology, and Social Hierarchy from Serlio’s Book VI to the Fuggerei in Early Modern Europe.
Matthieu GAUTROT (LASUR), L’Expérimentation d’Instruments d’Action Pour la Transition des Mobilités : Rôle de la Philanthropie Contributive.
Clara RICHARD (HITAM), The Ceremonial Object becomes Secular: An-Sky’s Collection in St Petersburg
Debate with Lucia OYARZUN (ALICE) & Cammy BROTHERS (CHAART).
15:20 Coffee break
15:45-17:05 SESSION 7. Matter for Abstraction
Damien GILLIARD (IBOIS), Ecosystem-Aware Roundwood Architecture.
Elif EREZ HENDERSON (RIOT), Re-Inscribing, Re-Valuing, Re-Using Timber: Infrastructural Translations of Salvaged Timber Building Materials.
Debate with Paolo TOMBESI (FAR) & Nicola BRAGHIERI (LAPIS).
17:05-17:20 Conclusion
Abstraction will be approached in its classical philosophical meaning, consistent with the view that understanding requires the mind to grasp the universal apart from the particulars in which it is embodied. In this sense, abstraction is the mental operation through which the essential structure of a subject is drawn out from its contingent features, allowing researchers to discern the general principles that render their object intelligible. This conceptual withdrawal does not negate the concrete but clarifies what endures beyond the variability of specific instances.
Autonomy will be presented as a distinct yet complementary notion: the capacity of a discipline to reflect upon itself through its own internal laws and modes of reasoning. It entails a temporary suspension of external frameworks so that the discipline may be understood from within, according to the coherence of its concepts and the logic that shapes its questions. While abstraction deals with the apprehension of universal principles, autonomy has to do with the conditions under which these principles operate within a disciplinary horizon.
Once defined as separate notions, abstraction and autonomy will be brought into constructive relation, for both require a measured intellectual distance that enables the essential to be articulated. In this context, participants will be invited to suspend, for a moment, the temporal and spatial dimensions that ordinarily situate their work, in order to concentrate on the internal logics that define it. The possibility of abstraction and autonomy will be explored not as a doctrine but as an open interpretative field through which doctoral researchers may examine their subjects at the level of foundational assumptions and operative laws.
These Rencontres will emphasise that both abstraction and autonomy admit multiple interpretations, each opening further avenues for reflection. Their plurality will form the ground of the collective discussion. Participants will therefore be encouraged not only to explore but to present the internal laws and guiding principles that structure their research, testing how their projects appear when considered within a horizon freed, temporarily, from external contingencies.
12 May 2026, AAC 120
8:30 Introduction: Elena Cogato Lanza (EDAR) and Nicola Braghieri (LAPIS)
9:00 KEYNOTE. "Abstraction and Autonomy in Architecture" by Pier Vittorio Aureli (TPOD) and debate.
10:15 Coffee Break
10:45-12h35 SESSION 1. Between structures and practices
Chloé MONTAVON (LASUR), La Place des Jeunes Femmes Dans l’Espace Public.
Constantinos MARCOU (TPOD), Beds by the Sea: Horace Gifford’s Fire Island Villas.
Sofía GONZÁLEZ JIMÉNEZ (LASUR), Digital Motility: Rethinking Mobility Beyond the Physical.
Debate with Sarah NICHOLS (THEMA) & Alfredo THIERMANN (HITAM)
12:35 Lunch break
13:45-15:05 SESSION 2. Visualizations
Filippo FANCIOTTI (LAPIS), The Autonomy of Digital Visualization for Decoding Analog Abstraction.
Ella NEUMAIER (HITAM), Functions of a Flowerpot: (Col)lapsed “Image-Worlds” at BASF Agricultural Testing Station Limburgerhof.
Debate with Vincent KAUFMANN (LASUR) & Stefana PARASCHO (CRCL)
15:10-16:30 SESSION 3. Statistics as abstraction
Martin PEIKERT (FAR), Abstraction as a Condition for Autonomy? Architecture Competitions in Switzerland Through the Lens of Quantitative Analysis.
Lucie PALANCHÉ (LASUR), Acceptabilité Sociale de Mesures Pour Réduire l’Utilisation de la Voiture à Genève.
Debate with Claudia BINDER (HERUS) & Aziza CHAOUNI (SONO).
16:30 Coffee break
17:00-18:30 LECTURE. "Who creates abstractly?" by Martin RUEFF (Department of Modern French Language and Literature, University of Geneva).
13 May 2026, AAC 020
8:45-10:35 SESSION 4. Flows and Mobilities
Jules GRANDVILLEMIN (LASUR), Autonomy and Abstraction of Geography and Sociology to Frame Sustainable Mobility Potential.
Ga In SIM (LDM), Friction as Form: Abstraction and Autonomy in Neighborhood Circular Urbanism.
Clément Luc RAMES (LASUR), Approximating complex sociotechnical systems.
Debate with Florence GRAEZER BIDEAU (HAT) & Elena COGATO LANZA (Lab-U).
10: 35 Coffee break
11:00-12h20 SESSION 5. Which Autonomy for Architecture ?
Reda BERRADA (LAPIS), Counter-Abstraction: the Persistence of Vernacular Architecture in Moroccan Archival Memory.
Tiffanie PARÉ (THEMA), Autonomy and Abstraction in Construction Bureaucracy: the Case of Zschokke in the Twentieth-Century Infrastructural Landscape.
Debate with Jerôme BAUDRY (LHST) & Isabella DI LENARDO (LASUR).
12:20 Welcome aperitif for Professor Cammy Brothers (at Espace Copernic)
13:30-15:20 SESSION 6. Models and Institutions
Theodora GIOVANAZZI (TPOD), Privacy Codified: Domestic Space, Typology, and Social Hierarchy from Serlio’s Book VI to the Fuggerei in Early Modern Europe.
Matthieu GAUTROT (LASUR), L’Expérimentation d’Instruments d’Action Pour la Transition des Mobilités : Rôle de la Philanthropie Contributive.
Clara RICHARD (HITAM), The Ceremonial Object becomes Secular: An-Sky’s Collection in St Petersburg
Debate with Lucia OYARZUN (ALICE) & Cammy BROTHERS (CHAART).
15:20 Coffee break
15:45-17:05 SESSION 7. Matter for Abstraction
Damien GILLIARD (IBOIS), Ecosystem-Aware Roundwood Architecture.
Elif EREZ HENDERSON (RIOT), Re-Inscribing, Re-Valuing, Re-Using Timber: Infrastructural Translations of Salvaged Timber Building Materials.
Debate with Paolo TOMBESI (FAR) & Nicola BRAGHIERI (LAPIS).
17:05-17:20 Conclusion
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- EDAR Doctoral Program in Architecture and Sciences of the City, Institute of Architecture
Contact
- Elena Cogato Lanza, [email protected]