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Guerrilla in the midst: the Universitas Project and a new type of institution
Citation
Steen, AP, Guerrilla in the midst: the Universitas Project and a new type of institution, Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand: Architecture, Institutions and Change, 07-10 July, Sydney, Australia, pp. 640-651. ISBN 9780646942988 (2015) [Refereed Conference Paper]
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Abstract
The Universitas Project was the brainchild of Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies
co-founder and Museum of Modern Art Curator of Design, Emilio Ambasz. In 1971
Ambasz sent his "Project Working Paper" to an extensive list of intellectuals ranging
from Kenneth Frampton to Michel Foucault, Denise Scott Brown to Roland Barthes.
Ambasz’s document, colloquially named "The Black Book," called for the creation
of a "new type of institution" to be built in New York state. The goal was to design
the structure and the curriculum of this "Universitas" to help educate architects and
designers for what Ambasz defines "a post-technological society." Ambasz solicited
"critical essays" from the respondents that addressed "The Black Book" and spoke to
his reformist educational and institutional agenda.
Italian semiotician Umberto Eco replied with the parodically-titled and -framed "Critical Essay". In this piece, Eco outlines a kind of non-university: a network-based model of education "by the masses" not merely "for" them. In outlining the relation of his "new university" to existing knowledge, Eco inserts a translated extract from Mao Zedong’s On Practice: "To acquire knowledge it is necessary to participate in the process which transforms reality. To get to know the taste of a pear it is necessary to transform it by eating it." These sentences help figure Eco’s argument. They indirectly capture the system of relation and the spirit of engagement he advocates. But the quotation also exercises the poetic function of language. It opens the "Critical Essay" to readings outside strict referential meaning. The message challenges the basic premises of Ambasz’s Universitas.
This paper takes Mao’s quotation as a lens through which to understand Eco’s "Critical Essay". It founds a semantic chain that opens Ambasz’s Universitas Project to cultural slippage and ideological contestation. Eco’s little "Black Book" response is presented here as non-institutional: a guerrilla incursion into so-called critical architectural discourse.
Italian semiotician Umberto Eco replied with the parodically-titled and -framed "Critical Essay". In this piece, Eco outlines a kind of non-university: a network-based model of education "by the masses" not merely "for" them. In outlining the relation of his "new university" to existing knowledge, Eco inserts a translated extract from Mao Zedong’s On Practice: "To acquire knowledge it is necessary to participate in the process which transforms reality. To get to know the taste of a pear it is necessary to transform it by eating it." These sentences help figure Eco’s argument. They indirectly capture the system of relation and the spirit of engagement he advocates. But the quotation also exercises the poetic function of language. It opens the "Critical Essay" to readings outside strict referential meaning. The message challenges the basic premises of Ambasz’s Universitas.
This paper takes Mao’s quotation as a lens through which to understand Eco’s "Critical Essay". It founds a semantic chain that opens Ambasz’s Universitas Project to cultural slippage and ideological contestation. Eco’s little "Black Book" response is presented here as non-institutional: a guerrilla incursion into so-called critical architectural discourse.
Item Details
Item Type: | Refereed Conference Paper |
---|---|
Keywords: | architectural discourse, Umberto Eco |
Research Division: | Built Environment and Design |
Research Group: | Architecture |
Research Field: | Architectural history, theory and criticism |
Objective Division: | Culture and Society |
Objective Group: | Communication |
Objective Field: | Communication not elsewhere classified |
UTAS Author: | Steen, AP (Dr Andrew Steen) |
ID Code: | 107414 |
Year Published: | 2015 |
Deposited By: | Architecture |
Deposited On: | 2016-03-15 |
Last Modified: | 2018-03-20 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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