The Social Project of Architecture

THEORIESALON #13
Kenny Cupers

VORTRAG IN ENGLISCHER SPRACHE

This lecture explores the vicissitudes of the social project in architecture today by excavating the role of architectural modernism in postwar urbanization. How can we construct a new topology of the social in architecture and urbanism that can expand the agency of these disciplines in the world at large? At a time when societal engagement continues to be seen as a threat to disciplinary autonomy, the lecture reverses this logic by locating socio-spatial knowledge at the core of architecture’s experimental nature.

Kenny Cupers is teaching architectural history, theory, and urban studies at the University at Buffalo. His work focuses on the social agency of architecture and the uses of urban space. Forthcoming books include Use Matters: An Alternative History of Architecture and The Social Project: Modern Architecture, Social Science, and the Postwar Suburbs in France.

ABOUT THEORIESALON
Theoriesalon is a loose series of architectural and design theory seminars that aim to challenge the presently expanding concepts of design and architecture.

The seminars will be reviewing critical contemporary design practices. Each of the positions that will be presented in the Theoriesalon series addresses interventions in the material world that strive to change our reality in an egalitarian way. Within this perspective, it is important to discuss theory in terms of everyday design practices, including the issue of whether design can be seen as a political practice.
Der Theoriesalon ist eine Initiative von Expanded Design, einem Büro für Architektur, Design und Forschung in Wien, www.expandeddesign.net

Eine Kooperation mit demDepot Wien,
gefördert von:BM:UKK