Enjoyed this talk on the theme of Aberration at Woodbury University School of Architecture's space on Hollywood Blvd. The school has smartly hired writer Mimi Zeiger to give itself a stronger identity within the field. Zeiger and Chicago-based designer Iker Gil of MAS Studio, who publishes the journal MAS Context, introduced what turned out to be very intellectual discussion on the theme, which is a good thing in this case. It featured a presentation by guest editor John Szot, architect and professor at Pratt Institute. You can download the journal as a PDF.
Szot's presentation on the issue and his own argument touches a soft spot for observational research-based urban thinking. Architecture has an immense capacity to recognize in physical form a world of politicized ideas, and Szot takes us on a journey through a set of "pathogical activit[ies] that present overpowering ideas that are captivating in their grotesqueness." He concludes with his own project for a hotel in Tokyo [truncated in the video above].
Contemporary architecture often references politicized ideas without being able to transform the economic conditions or consciousness through which new forms of the social are produced. The effect is often a rationalization of innovative form rather than an architecture that can conceivably offer a pathway to new social conditions: form we can believe in but not much change.
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