Master's Thesis: 2. Questions

2. Questions

Berlin is a city of empty spaces from bombings and the deconstruction of the wall. The voids in Berlin – a characteristic that inspired Oswald Mathias Ungers’ “Berlin as the Green Archipelago” – have now, within increasing population, become the focal points of densification and new urban speculation. Cooperative building projects are built in the vacant spaces, and the concept of void or openness is integrated into projects as common or programmed spaces. Here are my fundamental questions for the research.

Master's Thesis: 1. The failure of political philosophy and the failure of architecture

1. The failure of political philosophy and the failure of architecture

The French philosopher Jacques Rancière begins his book Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy with the question: “Is there any such thing as political philosophy?”[i] He argues that the Platonic and Aristotelian models of governance (the philosopher kings or political parties) as well as modern versions of democracy – which he would not label political, but an order of the police – are ultimately based upon deceptions of the people and a dislocation of people’s imaginative potential. For Rancière proper politics is not the agents of the politicians, the parliamentary debates or voting procedure, or the institutions of the state or departments of its operations. “Politics exists when the natural order of domination is interrupted by the institution of a part of those who have no part.”^[ii] Political philosophy, Rancière argues, has failed because it falsely conceives the people and disguised the fundamental societal conflict between the haves and the have-nots.

Master's Thesis - 0: Prologue on critique

0: Prologue on critique

Here is a critique of architecture. The first task of critique is to break apart. The second is to put back together. We cannot overemphasize the latter at the expense of the former. The architect’s task is usually one of designing the objects of peoples’ environments, which makes analysis feel like dead weight. A critique of architecture will oscillate between breaking apart architectural production and putting together possibilities of future arrangements, funding models, and politics of architecture. What would this oscillation look like? This project is an attempt to follow “Marx’s work … as an exposé of the world turned upside down and the attempt to right it.”[i]

Master's Thesis: Table of Contents

CRITIQUE OF ARCHITECTURE – ARCHITECTURE AS CRITIQUE

Towards a conceptualization of critical urban praxis (theory/proposition/physical activity) as a strategy of architectural commoning analyzed through the Baugruppe and Mietshäuser Syndikat in Berlin

"If a political system is corrupted so far that the investment lobby can take it over, then we have a corrupted system." 

                 – Arno Brandlhuber (interview with the author)

"Politics & the Political"

Here is a brief clip from an interview with Erik Swyngedouw. I am exceedingly interested in connecting architectural practices with the evolving field of critical geography.

Masters Thesis Abstract + Film Preview

Below is the abstract and film preview from my masters thesis. I will try to put a few dozen interviews online soon with links to films that I am developing that analyze variations in Berlin's collective housing: between privately owned (Baugruppen), demands for resocialization (Kotti & Co), and commons models of cooperative duel ownership (Mietshäuser Syndikat). 

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Title:

CRITIQUE OF ARCHITECTURE – ARCHITECTURE AS CRITIQUE

Towards a conceptualization of critical urban praxis (theory/proposition/physical activity) as a strategy of architectural commoning analyzed through the Baugruppe and Mietshäuser Syndikat in Berlin

  

Abstract

This project develops a critique of architecture and suggests that local architectural strategies can forge alliances with social movements to produce material critique of society. First, the critique of architecture can reveal contradictions in how we conceptualize architecture in order to suggest a balance between critical proximity and critical distance – the actor-network assemblage and the forces of planetary urbanization. Second, I ask specific questions regarding new collective housing strategies in Berlin, whether material form or economic contracts adequately accommodate various visions of a collective society. Third, I will extrapolate upon a critical urban praxis, which identifies three parts: (1) theory/research, (2) propositions/models, and (3) physical activity/embodied action, each of which must retain the three fundamentals of critical theory (1) reflexivity, (2) critique of instrumental reason, (3) illuminate pathways from the actual to the possible. Fourth, the project is then localized in Berlin by analyzing the cycles of history, divided city, restructuring of the post-1989 economy and scales of neoliberal urbanization. The state has rolled back state programs, such as social housing, while rolling out new incentives for private housing (such as giving tax refunds for Baugruppen projects). Fifth, the comparison between Baugruppe and Mietshäuser Syndikat illustrates similarities in material form, and differences in ownership: the Baugruppe have private individual and the Mietshäuser Syndikat have dual ownership. The positive narrative inaccurately deceives the professional architecture community and the broader public of the community value of new social architectural models, while tenant resistance continues and housing is needed for those without capital. 

Film preview:

Detropia film trailer

Film: "Creativity and the Capitalist City"

I am sorry for not to blog in the last months. I have been very busy and stressed with my masters thesis. I will post some of that online soon. Also, I am working on a new film regarding various collective housing models in Berlin: (1) market rate, sustainable, participatory, and common space  building groups (in German Baugruppen), (2) cooperatively financed housing (in German Genossenschaften), and even strategies that develop duel ownership to permanently remove the property form the real-estate market (especially here the Mietshäser Syndikat).

Below is an interesting film that I watched last night that reveals through a documentary film perhaps the most prevalent and pervasive term in contemporary city development throughout the world — creativity. The film was made by urban sociologist Tino Buchholz and is called "Creativity and the Capitalist City: The Struggle for Affordable Space in Amsterdam." It presents many scales of creative activity: squats, anti-squats, city branding, resistance, and the right to the city. Website for the film here. It also has interesting interviews from activists, business leaders, branding organizations, artists, citizens, and political geographer Jamie Peck.

trailer

 


full film in english:
 

the city and the political REFLECTION

http://citypolitical.net/2012/07/20/city-political-papers-now-in-colour/#

The Architect in the Neoliberal City

What is the role of the architect in the neoliberal city?

I am interested in pursing this question during the next five months in Berlin while completing my masters thesis, which I will document on this blog. The project will be both research and practice in attempt to articulate strategies of critical spatial praxis.

Political or police architects?

Below is a draft of the paper I presented at the conference "Architecture and the Political," Beirut, Lebanon, where I try to construct an ethnography using Bruno Latour's actor-network theory, while trying to compare progressive architectural strategies to Jacques Ranciére's concept of politics. If you have any feedback, please leave it below or in an email. Thanks.

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POLITICAL OR POLICE ARCHITECTS? interpreting architecture in place

ABSTRACT

Architects have mobilized in increasing numbers over the past decades to confront rising inequality. Paralleling architecture’s potentially political project, Jacques Rancière has developed a new conception of politics as “disagreement” that confronts our representative democracies’ “police order.” I will approach both topics—new socially-conscious/public-interest architectures and Rancière's politics—as sets of controversies, as advised by Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory (ANT), and try to make them visible. An ethnographic construction will present architecture and politics in the making between concepts, agents, and objects. The Alley Flat Initiative at the University of Texas will perform the controversies in a real place, at which point we can begin to trace the projectile of categories such as Rancière's politics and “political architecture.”  Once the measurements are documented, new projectiles can be proposed in between Rancière's police order (as “police architectures”) and political emancipation (as “political architectures”), between restriction and openness. New experimental practices must build on top of the solid foundations of ANT assemblages with malleable disciplinary specificities, oscillating between critical distance and proximity, while advocating for continued experimentation in the field, placing bricks in time and space.

What is the architect without money?

Cities are in crisis. People are mobilizing dissent in public squares. Professions must reimagine their role, or in this case, architects must reconsider their role.

Sociologist John Holloway recognizes the problem of protest is that capitalism integrates cultures of dissent into the profit making mechanisms. Holloway suggests that the only thing capitalism cannot dismiss is capital itself. Therefore, we might encourage proper resistance strategies to begin by subverting the use of money. Then we can ask our architects...

Architects of Objects or Architects of Balance

Below is my abstract for a paper I presented at "The Making of Architects / Architects in the Making: International Workshop on the Architectural Sociology Working Group," Darmstadt, Germany.

5 points to an "ethical" architecture

Here is an interesting, very brief, documentary that introduces a few contrasting perspectives on Le Corbusier's architecture and the role of the architect in society.

striking at the root of the problem

‎"Only 11% of Americans have confidence in congress." The Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig argues that forming genuine democracy begins by taking the money out of politics. A simple concept. How can it be mobilized? Join today at RootStrikers.

Striking The Root of Wall Street Corruption from Sean McDaniel on Vimeo.

design philosophy papers

I published my first peer-reviewed article this week in design philosophy papers. The article is called "democratic social architecture or experimentation on the poor? ethnographic snapshots." The article presents "social architecture," the Bruce Nussbaum debate, ethnographic snapshots from the Rural Studio, Architecture for Humanity, and the Alley Flat Initiative, and my suggestion that architects forge deeper alliances with social movements such as the Right to the City Alliance (or now, perhaps, the Occupy Wall Street movement). The article can be found by clicking here and the introduction is below...

Education as the battle between ideas...

I recently reflected upon my education for Marlboro College's "After Marlboro: Stories of Recent Graduates Off the Hill." Text below...

To me, interdisciplinary study supports the battle between ideas. The skirmish of my Plan of Concentration at Marlboro College was between disciplines with writing, film and community architecture. I have gone on to study in an “interdisciplinary” architecture masters program based out of Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, Germany, called Architektur.Studium.Generale. But now I realize that interdisciplinary study does not translate easily between different institutions. Not all schools support the ideological battleground.

my abstract for "architecture and the political" conference

I will be presenting a paper at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon, at a conference called "Architecture and the Political: The Fourth International Symposium on Architectural Theory."

Below is the abstract that I submitted to the conference. The final paper will vary somewhat from the below..

on a donkey's trail

I am on a student's journey. Years ago I traveled across the US, and over the last year I have traveled through Europe: Germany, Estonia, Portugal, Poland, Austria, and Spain. My body has moved through space. I am in a graduate program that takes me to these countries, working with faculty in different cities, and producing many architectural projects.

My mind too has gone on a kind of journey. This journey may have not been as visually observable or prescribed by the graduate program. However, my mind has taken highways, flights, trains, and paths. I have explored many directions. I have tested ideas. I have met new philosophies. 

Resisting Shock Urbanization

We must reconsider the role of the architect today because society has serious climatic, political, and economic crises. Climate change has exacerbated hurricanes tearing apart cities and droughts driving people off their farmlands — resulting in the largest human migration in history. Cities urgently need to be built and rebuilt.