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Constructing Barricades: Politics of the Event and Weak Architecture
Citation
Hannah, DM, Constructing Barricades: Politics of the Event and Weak Architecture, Architecture and the Political Fourth International Symposium on Architectural Theory, November 10-12, Beirut, Lebanon (2011) [Non Refereed Conference Paper]
Abstract
While the post-political paradigm in architectural discourse may lay claim to
depoliticizing architecture, a performance paradigm emerging from cultural studies
allows us to re-politicize the field through the notion of spatial performativity: a
destabilizing of architecture’s will to be fixed and durable through a concentration on
the complexities of architecture as event. This realignment redresses Henri
Lefebvre’s critique of architecture’s implacable objectality with Gilles Deleuze’s focus
on the mobilized objectile. Such an emphasis on architecture’s temporal mutability
also reinforces Sanford Kwinter’s demand for "an all-encompassing theory and
politics of the ‘event’".
This paper acknowledges the active role architecture plays in reinforcing a
contemporary barricade mentality, which curtails our freedom of movement and
expression in the very name of "freedom", while suggesting that in more ephemeral
gestures of fortification – seen in a proliferation of data codes, plastic tape, synthetic
webbing and portable concrete fences – lies the possibility for critiquing how our
public performances are limited and controlled. Positing the barricade as an
architectural and social formation allows us to consider its shifting political
implications seen in public artworks that are aligned with Rubió Ignaci Solŕ-Morales’
concept of "weak architecture".
Item Details
Item Type: | Non Refereed Conference Paper |
---|---|
Research Division: | Built Environment and Design |
Research Group: | Architecture |
Research Field: | Architecture not elsewhere classified |
Objective Division: | Expanding Knowledge |
Objective Group: | Expanding knowledge |
Objective Field: | Expanding knowledge in built environment and design |
UTAS Author: | Hannah, DM (Professor Dorita Hannah) |
ID Code: | 95371 |
Year Published: | 2011 |
Deposited By: | School of Creative Arts and Media |
Deposited On: | 2014-09-30 |
Last Modified: | 2014-09-30 |
Downloads: | 0 |
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