Are we architects? - Bart Lootsma

The Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology, in collaboration with the Brno Architecture Gallery, the Student Council of the Faculty of Architecture, and the Prague gallery VI PER, invites you to a lecture by architecture theorist and critic Bart Lootsma titled "Theory Between History, Criticism, and Speculation", which is part of the lecture series "Are We Architects? On Education, the Architectural Profession, and Institutional Critique". The event will take place on Tuesday, November 5, 2019, at 18:00 in lecture room A310 at the Faculty of Architecture, Poříčí 5, Brno. The lecture will be in English.

THEORY BETWEEN HISTORY, CRITICISM, AND SPECULATION

Architectural theory has a long tradition in Europe, tracing back at least to Vitruvius, who lived in the 1st century BC. Although music theory has an even older history in Europe, dating back to ancient Greece, theory and practice did not intersect until the Middle Ages. Architectural theory has had practical applications since the very beginning. Due to its long, well-documented history, architectural theory remains predominantly Eurocentric. We know there is a Japanese tradition, but we know very little about it. In recent decades, theories created at American universities have gained importance. In the context of globalization and particularly the internet, architectural theory is slowly but surely becoming global. This is tied to the global dissemination of images, texts, and videos on worldwide web platforms such as ArchDaily and Dezeen, with previously unimaginable numbers of visitors, but also technological developments. This has transformed the relationship between design and production, such as CAD-CAM and especially through robotics, but also between construction and organization. How can European theory, which has emphasized housing and urbanism for all over the past centuries, contribute to this development?

Bart Lootsma (*1957 Amsterdam) is a historian, theorist, critic, and curator in the fields of architecture, design, and visual arts. He is a professor of architectural theory at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Innsbruck. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Luxembourg, the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and Nuremberg, the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, the Berlage Institute, served as the head of research at the Basel Studio at ETH Zurich, and as the head of the 3D Design Institute at the Art Academy in Arnhem. Bart Lootsma curated ArchiLab 2004 in Orléans and the Montenegro Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2016. He has published numerous articles and several books, such as Superdutch (2000) and Reality Bytes. Selected Essays 1995–2015 (2016). He has edited magazines including Forum, de Architect, ARCHIS, ARCH+, l’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, Daidalos, and GAM.

ARE WE ARCHITECTS? ON EDUCATION, THE ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION, AND INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE

In the past fifteen years, the education of architects has been subjected to dual pressure. One direction stems from the recalibration of the institutional framework of higher education and is associated with what is sometimes referred to as the "research turn." In response to increasing demands and performance in research, schools of architecture and design have adopted a vaguely articulated approach called "research by design." This "evasion" clearly indicates an epistemological divide between architecture and more methodologically anchored scientific disciplines that conduct research without qualifiers. A fundamentally similar problem, but this time coming from the outside, is often formulated as a problem of theory and practice. This direction of critique frequently points to the detachment of architectural education from real-world problems and the applicability of architectural research to real life. The question of relevance is precisely the acupuncture point that connects doubts about the relationship between academia and architectural practice, hence doubts about the relevance of the architectural profession to contemporary "society." This progression transforms an epistemological question about the nature of architectural education and research into an ontological one: How do we as architects relate to the surrounding world, and what role do we want to play in it?

The lecture series "Are We Architects? On Education, the Architectural Profession, and Institutional Critique" is held with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the statutory city of Brno, and the Czech Architecture Foundation.