Alteration: Theories, Strategies, Works (Fall 2011)
How does architecture as a discipline think about alteration? Is our theory and method for confronting the existing sufficient? How can the ambition and engagement in alteration design be raised? This three-day symposium examines strategies and tools relating to alteration - the reconfi guring of existing environments in the pursuit of architectural creativity, social resilience and sustainable agendas. The event is organised by KTH School of Architecture and supported by the Swedish Schools of Architecture Strong Research Environment “Architecture in the Making”. It is lead by Tim Anstey (Architecture and Authorship, Black Dog Publishing 2007) and Catharina Gabrielsson (Att Göra Skillnad [To Make a Difference], Axl Books, 2007).
In post-industrial societies clusters of problems in the built environment revolve around the question of alteration. Around 90% of Swedish building construction in the coming ten years will reconfi gure existing building stock. Whether these actions relate to the monumental or the mundane, to museums or factories, to social housing or infrastructure, architects’ core activities are increasingly concerned with alteration. But in stark contrast, educational, practice and procurement structures in architecture and the building industry are still mortgaged to the logic of new construction. Architecture is still defi ned generally in terms of “the design of new forms” and architectural agency remains tied to ideas of original intention and authorship. The seminar creates a forum between academia and practice to discuss alteration in three afternoon sessions themed around theories, strategies and works. Sessions run from 13.00 to 17.00 on Wednesday August 31, Thursday September 1, and Friday September 2. Alteration forms part of the Masters level orientation course in history, theory and technology autumn 2011 at KTH School of Architecture.
Session 1 – Theories
Session 1 (theories) considers how alteration challenges existing structures in and of architecture. Implying revised notions of authorship (how architecture is read and architectural process is owned), and of the temporal (the ‘permanence’ of architecture confronted with the ‘impermanence’ of occupancy), alteration opens up for re-thinking architecture in terms of indeterminacy.
Links to the lectures at YouTube
- Catharina Gabrielsson, "Introduction"
- Meike Schalk (KTH), "Relational aesthetics and institutional change"
- Thordis Arrhenius (AHO), "Preservation and Protest: Counter culture and Heritage in 1970s Sweden"
- Jonathan Metzger (KTH), "Messing with territorial subjectivities: negotiating the (quasi) subject of place"
- Simon Sadler (UCLA Davis), "Architecture – A Hermeneutics of Alteration?"
- Panel session 1: Theories
Session 2 – Strategies
Session 2 (strategies) poses the question how do we ‘see’ the past and the existing; and of what is at stake, what will be changed, in projects of alteration. As well as grasping the specificity of the physical object, in alteration projects it is crucial to map the forces of cultural expectation present in the various representations and mediations of the existing: to record both the building as a physical ‘fact’ and as a cultural artefact constructed over time.
Links to the lectures at YouTube
- Tim Anstey (KTH), "Introduction"
- Ellen Braae (University of Copenhagen), "Design as intervention"
- Suzanne Ewing (University of Edinburgh), "Alter(c)ations"
- Roger Spetz (Spetz Holst/KTH), "Caricature–the potential of subjective readings"
- Alexander Schwarz (David Chipperfield Architects), "Strategies and seeing – Neues Museum, from ruin to museum"
- Panel session 2: Strategies
Session 3 – Works
Alteration creates something of a crisis for the category of the architectural work. Session 3 (works) attempts to discuss that crisis through contributions that problematicise ‘work’ in architecture – as noun or verb – through history and in contemporary practice. What quirks does the notion of the architectural work entail? What new areas of creativity are opened up through a redefinition of the relation between ‘working’ and ‘altering’?
Links to the lectures at YouTube
- Thordis Arrhenius (AHO), "Introduction"
- Lucia Allais (University of Princeton), "Integrities: The International Salvage of Abu Simbel"
- Mark Cousins (Architectural Association), "Editing vs. Design"
- Ippolito Laparelli and James Westcott, (OMA), "OMA*AMO: preservation samples"
- Arno Brandlhuber (Brandlhuber+), "Berlin Standards"
- Panel session 3: Works
