Architecture at risk: Are Lefebrve and Foucault useful in practice?

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1 Architecture at risk: Are Lefebrve and Foucault useful in practice? Dr. Camillo Boano Development Planning Unit, Bartlett School of Built Environment, University College London

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3 Questions Architecture at risk: the ambiguously risky role of architects and traditional architectural practice in the delivery of post disaster housing; the expedient nature of recovery and provision that tends to threaten the paradigm of architecture which can be seen as object centric and thus superficial in such contexts. deeper existential crisis of architecture. Are Lefebvre and Foucault useful in practice? Lefebvre s conceptual musings on the architect and space; Foucaultian vision of post disaster spatialities and powers;

4 Answer NO but worth trying!

5 Origins of a pretentious claim A de spatialization of post disaster housing; The supremacy of processes vs outcomes; The massive knowledge produced and available; The sense of dismay for the enormity of the task (just post disaster society) Is post disaster a practice in need of a theory (or philosophy)? Architectural lack or excess?

6 Bosnia Herzegovina Mumbaisici, Sri Lanka Tirukkovil, Italy L aquila, Aceh, Indonesia

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9 Dangers of a pretentious claim Not to suggest that post disaster practice is solely deemed an architect s business (materiality and physical reconstruction); But rather to examine the relationship between spatial production and recovery as a possible theoretical architecture problem that may produce different threads of inquiry (a post disaster architecture theory?) To convey an immanent framework of post disaster housing constructing a philosophical lens that allows for a critical investigation of the peculiar, contested and paradoxical nature of post disaster practice, To contribute to the recent resurgent debate over the social dimension of architecture.

10 We know a lot: different modes of production of post disaster housing

11 Imperfect state of affairs A profound semantic confusion; Inherent complexity as practice and discipline The materiality vs the immateriality Technocracy and participation rhetoric The control paradigm The normality vs the (a)normality of disasters

12 4 positions on architecture today (task + role) Market Architecture Building as products to compete in the market Architecture as SERVICE ACCEPTING THE MARKET AND THE WORLD AS IT IS Resistance Architecture Protecting the architectural way Architecture as Discipline (Architecture) ADOPTING A CRITICAL POSITION Utopian architecture Imperative of Invention Architecture as Discipline (Architecture) ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUS Social Architecture (Re social?) Not an art but a social practice Architecture as Service ADOPTING A CRITICAL POSITION FACILITATION

13 4 positions on architecture today (task + role) Market Architecture Building as products to compete in the market Architecture as SERVICE ACCEPTING THE MARKET AND THE WORLD AS IT IS Resistance Architecture Protecting the architectural way Architecture as Discipline (Architecture) ADOPTING A CRITICAL POSITION Utopian architecture Imperative of Invention Architecture as Discipline (Architecture) ACCEPTANCE OF THE STATUS Social Architecture (Re social?) Not an art but a social practice Architecture as Service ADOPTING A CRITICAL POSITION FACILITATION

14 Architectural tensions Architecture in between art and a profession, the most social of arts and the most aesthetic as profession as Dovey (2010:41) posits. As art it carries the obligation to imagine transformations and changes, while as a profession it carries the obligation to adhere to the public interest, practiced in conjunction with the collective will and voices of individuals, and the shouts of larger societal needs. So what exactly are the transformative potentials of architecture?

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16 The Production of Space Lefebvre Framing post disaster housing in this sense aims to reinforce the nature of reconstruction essentially as spaces and places in a rapid state of challenging abstraction and becoming integrated into instances of the everyday life; Claiming that (social) space is a (social) product (1991: 26), he considers space beyond an intrinsic physicality, thus hinting towards its philosophical meaning as real and mental space. He defines space in three ways: as a spatial practice (perceived space), as representations of space (conceived space) and as representational spaces (lived spaces)

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19 A Foucaultian vision of postdisaster space The deployment of spatial metaphors and spatial politics is central, (the nature of knowledge, the multiple relations between truth, power and the subject); Not simply a building, but yet more than just a metaphor, becoming what Foucault suggests as a description of institution in terms of architecture (1976:71). It has the capacity of not only describing a space but practicing it. Post disaster space is an ambivalent space where this duality is produced by both oppressed and liberating spatialities The heterotopian reconstruction spaces as spaces apart, open but isolated (Foucault 1984:180), a space of illusions that denounces all that is in place around it and contesting the cacophonies of order and control of humanitarian exogenous powers.

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24 Architecture and design tensions Humanitarian (recovery) without architect could sounds as architecture without architecture ; In this sense, completely dismissing the potential of architecture as a discipline, while criticising and challenging its practice, feels wrongfully dramatic; Not a total dismissal of the discipline, but rather a calling for a reengagement of architecture with social practice. In another words, Architects might be the last persons needed, but Architecture is surely fundamental; Buildings, whether from a reactionary or radical viewpoint, are placed at the centre of an ideological struggle which architecture cannot avoid.

25 Architecture and design tensions Architecture as a discipline and practice will continue to be at risk as long as it fails to subject its own critical reflections and distance itself from the obsession of the object and recognise its dependency on outside forces and influences. Re thinking the limits of the discipline by the inclusion of others in the practice, could be especially significant in reattaching its worth to post disaster reconstruction. As Till argues the urgent move is from a reliance on the impulsive imagination of the lone genius to that of the collaborative ethical imagination; from clinging to notions of total control to a relaxed acceptance of letting go (2009: 151). If this critical separation can be achieved then space will be opened for more culturally sensitive approaches to home making and remaking. In not giving up on Architecture s