Are we architects? - Tatjana Schneider

The Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology, in collaboration with the Architecture Gallery Brno, the Students' Association of the Faculty of Architecture, and the Prague gallery VI PER, invites you to a lecture by architect and academic Tatjana Schneider "Architecture schools should be abolished!* *unless", 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, October 1, 2019, at 6:00 PM in lecture room A310 of the Faculty of Architecture, Poříčí 5, Brno. The lecture will be in English.

TATJANA SCHNEIDER: ARCHITECTURE SCHOOLS SHOULD BE ABOLISHED!*
*unless
The lecture will begin with an introduction to a set of demands formulated in 2011 by Tatjana Schneider, Alaistair Parvin, and Sam Brown. By pointing out the introverted nature of architectural education and practice, they aimed to challenge notions of responsibility and elitism and emphasized the necessity for change. Of course, they were neither the first nor the last to disparage university education, particularly architectural education. Many have formulated criticism long before them, and—as Tatjana fears—many more will unfortunately follow. Nevertheless, it seems we are in a period of particularly intensive chatter, striving to reform universities, revamp curricula, and so forth. We repeatedly hear that this is due to the urgency of responding to problems that affect us all: the impending climate catastrophe, already existing vast inequalities and economic crises, enormous social upheavals that seem more urgent than ever. It is precisely these places of discontent and experimentation that Tatjana wishes to inhabit at least for a moment. She will also outline how it might be possible not only to relate to the world but to work with the world in such a way as to fundamentally (re)change the hegemonic system and reconfigure the manner in which we create, build, maintain, and care for relationships that contribute to understanding the multitude of crises we face, and for which we bear a share of the blame.

Tatjana Schneider is an urban theorist and educator, and she is a professor of history and theory of architecture and the city at the Technische Universität Braunschweig. From 2004 to 2018, she worked at the Sheffield School of Architecture, where, for example, she co-led the Spatial Agency project from 2006, exploring alternative approaches in architecture and new ways of understanding how space can be produced. Her work addresses the social and economic mechanisms of space production, understanding architecture as a collaborative, emancipatory, and fundamentally political discipline. With respect to urban transformations and increasing socio-spatial inequalities in many parts of the world, her research and teaching engage with examples of projects that contribute to justice and bridge diverse professions, practices, and fields of education. She focuses on the social, economic, and political parameters influencing architectural and urban creation, as well as the tools and methods enabling citizens to participate in space production. Her interest is manifested through visual and verbal critiques of normative intellectual and pedagogical tendencies, as well as direct interventions in space that often have an activist dimension. Among the most important projects she has recently been involved in are m-NAP (with Michael Edwards), Flexible Housing (with Jeremy Till, published in 2007), and Right to Build (with Alaistair Parvin, David Saxby, and Cristina Cerulli, published in 2011).

ARE WE ARCHITECTS? ON EDUCATION, THE ARCHITECTURAL PROFESSION, AND INSTITUTIONAL CRITIQUE
Over the past fifteen years, architectural education has been under dual pressure. One direction stems from the recalibration of the institutional framework of higher education and is connected to what is sometimes referred to as the "research turn." In response to increasing demands and performance in research, schools of architecture and design have reacted with a vaguely articulated approach called "research by design." This "evasion" clearly points to the epistemological divide between architecture and more methodologically anchored scientific disciplines that conduct research without qualifiers. Essentially, the same issue, albeit arising from outside, is often framed as the problem of theory and practice. This line of criticism frequently highlights the detachment of architectural education from real problems and the applicability of architectural research to real life. The question of relevance is precisely the acupuncture point that bridges doubts about the relationship between academia and architectural practice, as well as doubts about the relevance of the architectural profession to contemporary "society." Through this approach, what began as an epistemological question about the nature of architectural teaching and research becomes an ontological question: 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.