Affirming Actions Symposium

Can we look at the results of design activity as the articulation of polity concerns or the affirmation of specific stances that use constructions as platforms for ideas and systems of values with collective import?

More directly, can architecture convey operative positions about what is relevant in the world today?

At a time of environmental, technological and economic upheavals, a question such as this has the power to coalesce newfound interest in architects’ practices and the forms they may take vis-à-vis the challenges we face. 

Are there models of practice that could be seen more contemporary than others in light of their capacity to interpret perils and possibilities of our times?
If so, are these models a continuation of established trajectories of architectural professionalism or do they imply a break with the past and the emergence of new actors?

To elucidate these issues, the Institute of Architecture and the City has organised a day of debate amongst architects who have all shown a resolve to engage with building as both an expressive and a strategic medium. In the process, they have managed to combine resourcefulness and poetry, pragmatism and scholarship. By virtue of their quality, many of their projects affirm the power of architectural agency even in conditions of limited means.
At the same time, the industriousness underlying the work suggests both the need and the relevance of carrying out disciplined reflection (when not outright research) in areas that are strategic, yet traditionally tangential, to the task of the architect as conventionally understood.

The event, to be held in the auditorium of the Rolex Learning Centre in celebration of its tenth anniversary, on 29 May 2021, from 9h00 to 19h00, is envisaged as a series of seven 60-minute thematic discussions, each involving two architects, either in presence or on line, and recent graduates acting as facilitators in presence. Each discussion is structured around a topic, chosen as an opportunity for the invited guests to articulate some of the important aspects informing their architectural positions - initially by making a short but focused presentation of their work, and then by engaging in a panel discussion.
The program will conclude with a conversation with Denise Scott Brown, on line from Philadelphia, about her current and future projects.