Recommended reading | Paper Architecture, Emerging Urbanism

Continuos Monument by Superstudio

I just came back with lots of energy and ideas from the first phase of the KAM Workshop the Bankruptcy of Architecture. It was interesting to hear to all the students statements, while the mid presentations on Sunday 22th, about the meaning and ideas of the motto "the Bankruptcy of Architecture".

This morning while taking a look to some webs, this article appeared and I think it's worth reading. Just take a look at some concepts exposed:

The current economic downturn has impacted the building industry and architecture profession more severely than many other market sectors [...] As early as November 2008, when many firms were first jolted by a sudden downturn, John McMorrough, an assistant professor and director of the graduate program in architecture at Ohio State, gave an informal lecture at Northeastern University that sought analogies between the current economic situation and the deep recession in the mid-1970s.

In a recent issue of Architectural Record, James Murdock asked the question more directly: “Will we see a new generation of "paper architects" — the archetypal figure from the last recession?

La Ville Spatiale, Yona Friedman

In 1980, British architect Ron Herron had this vision for a new Congress Hall conference center for Berlin.

Tim Love tries to answer with his article, some important questions about the kind of agendas that the new generation of architects should raise. And he wrote:

One especially promising approach will be to re-embed architecture, as a discipline, within important emerging ideas about the future of urbanism and the existing realities of the contemporary city. For the discipline of architecture, as articulated in the schools, has long had an ambivalent relationship to these realities. Most architecture curricula are untethered to relevant urban issues, and most do not integrate studio pedagogy within the broader intellectual framework of the city and do not include an urban design studio in the course sequence.

So, after the mid-presentations that where mostly focused in terms like "public space" "materials re-use" and "mobility" among others, it's a good task to take a moment to read Love's reflections on this issue. As he said:

For this framework to flourish, design speculation will need to focus on the cultural and social implications of re-imagined building types and potential urbanisms rather than on their economic and functional performance.

The complete article at the Design Observer

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