In the last several years, a crisis of capitalist development has redefined our understanding of cities in terms of international policy making, political constituencies and individual and collective political expressions in the urban realm. Inter Unit 8 has been experimenting with possible new scenarios for this political readjustment at a global scale, departing from its most basic expressions in the city. As a result, students have constructed innovative political arguments by experimenting with the relationship between everyday material activities–such as waiting for a bus, dancing, chatting in the streets, or wheeling and dealing in the city squares–and a particular material organization. In these common everyday practices, students have found the materials from which to reconstruct the political experience in the city. Manifested in public and constructed as a physical material expression, these everyday practices acquire a political value — understanding the political as what Hannah Arendt described as action in public — and redefine new models of the interaction between the individual and the collective in the public arena.

21.11.09

5th Workshop

W9 FULL: Construction as people
23-27 Nov
In this exercise, which is complementary to the previous one, students will represent the Ministry of Internal affairs and Plaza de la Revolución through different techniques. They will be specific about how they draw it while understanding the political and representational load of the building.

Readings
Pier Vittorio Aureli, “Rossi: The Concept of the locus as a political category of the city”, in The Project of Autonomy, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2008, pp.53-69.
Christopher C.M. Lee and Sam Jacoby (eds), AA Agendas 5 Typological Formations, Renewable Building Types and the City, London: AA Publications, 2007.
References - Buildings
Giusepe Terragni, Casa del Fascio, 1932-1936.
Aquiles Capablanca, Cuban Ministry of Internal Affairs, 1953.
Alejandro De la Sota, Tarragona Civil Government, 1956-61.
Rafael Moneo, Murcia Town Hall, 1991-1998.
Foster + Partners, London City Hall, 1998-2002.



Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
Design and research work of Intermediate Unit 8 Architectural Association School of Architecture London UK