“The Other Architect” Exhibition Examines How Architects Design Without Building

“For as long as architecture has been reduced to a service to society or an ‘industry’ whose ultimate goal is only to build, there have been others who imagine it instead as a field of intellectual research: energetic, critical, radical,” states Giovanna Borasi in her essay “Another Way of Building Architecture.” Excavating this field of research and researchers on a common observational plane is the intent of the exhibition “The Other Architect,” currently on view at the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery at Columbia University.

Curated by Borasi with its debut exhibition at the Canadian Center for Architecture in Montreal, “The Other Architect” makes a timely emergence at a moment when the architectural profession is utilizing its exhibition platforms to ruminate not on architecture’s form, but its greater context. “The Other Architect” “is an exhibition of architects who expanded their role in society to shape the contemporary cultural agenda without the intervention of built form,” states the show’s introduction. The exhibition presents 23 case studies of architectural research practices, ranging from the 1960s to the present day, including work from more historical organizations such as Delos Symposium and CIRCO, to active contemporary groups the likes of AMO, Forensic Architecture and Center for Urban Pedagogy.

Arranging posters, videos, drawings manifestos, articles and correspondence, the exhibition is not interested in defining the work by its historical attachments, but rather it wishes to draw out the methodologies by which architectural practitioners have critically engaged the profession to understand its sociocultural possibilities.

To this end, the format of exhibition itself departs from the conventions of architectural display, favoring procedural evidence, modalities and meditations over concrete outcomes. “Reading the traces of these different creative processes — budgets, tactics, for accessing resources, communication plans, meeting minutes, project drafts, mission statements, correspondence, unpublished studies — is more relevant here than studying the final products,” remarks Borasi.

“ … They shared a will for a closer connection to the spirit of their time: to understand it better and to offer it more appropriate suggestions … ”

While drastically ranging in method and level of experimentation, each organization is unified by its attempt to engender what architecture so often fails to accomplish through its formal achievements. “ … They shared a will for a closer connection to the spirit of their time: to understand it better and to offer it more appropriate suggestions, or even to anticipate future questions,” explains Borasi. In a way, these practices occupy a privileged position over the profession, as research is liberated from the shackles of materiality, of permanence, of the anxiety over timelessness. These practices allow architecture to become animated, to become a tool for cultural production rather than its container.

“I tend to believe that the comparison among different experiences emerging from different contexts can help the development of new ideas in architecture,” states Giancarlo de Carlo, founder of the International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design featured in the exhibition. Fixtured as a network of architectural universities, ILAUD was determined to stimulate these “new ideas in architecture” through the examination of a multitude of experiences. ILAUD pointedly established this educational network as a laboratory, and not a classroom, abolishing hierarchies in favor of a rigorous collective pursuit of new concepts.

“Pedagogy, the study of teaching, seeks to transmit agency, the ability to make things happen … ”

The rebellion against or reinvention of a formalized educational structure runs central to the work of many of the case studies featured in “The Other Architect.” The organization Global Tools, which was created by such architectural luminaries of the 1970s as Ettore Sottsass, Ugo La Pietra, Gaetano Pesce, Superstudio, Zziggurat, among others, was established outside of their architectural practices also as a laboratory to “stimulate the free development of individual creativity,” as stated by the group’s “The-La-Co-n-stitu-z-t-ion-e.” The nomadic school focused on teaching artisanal craftwork and body movement classes in order to facilitate the “stimulation of the creative faculties of each individual, up to now suffocated by specialization and the craze for efficiency.”

For many of these practices, the act of learning and researching becomes a more influential tool than building itself. The mission statement for New York’s Center for Urban Pedagogy explains, “Pedagogy, the study of teaching, seeks to transmit agency, the ability to make things happen. Intimate with the material culture of everyday life, designers can publicly unpack the mechanisms by which the built environment comes to be seen as normal, in order to liberate the power of form for other ends.” Like ILAUD and Global Tools, the group is interested in empowering architectural production through education. By engaging urban youths with architecture and by compelling them to talk about what it symbolizes to them, they hope to better inform future generations of architecture’s sociocultural impact on our environments.

In the pursuit of agency beyond building, the range of methodologies varies widely in their levels of experimentation. Eyal Weizman’s led practice Forensic Architecture departs from any concrete engagement with the profession, rather utilizing its modeling tools to piece together precise information for political investigations, while on the other end of the spectrum, programs like the Anyone Conference of the Delos Symposium (while it took place on a cruise) are formulated as rather conventional forums for architectural discourse with a curated selection of participants.

The common thread to each work, however, is that architects must reckon with the cultural agenda that architecture inherently produces. It is in the communication of this theme that the absence of a historical context is most successfully supportive. It communicates that whatever the current ethos in whatever place — as long as architecture has an obligation to structure our society — architects will feel compelled to reinvigorate its impact through other disciplines and new methods of inquiry.

Despite the strength of this curatorial gesture, the exhibition as a vehicle effectively deflates in part the power of its message. While Borasi describes “The Other Architect”itself as “a research project, concerned in its own way with contributing a new reflection on the role of the architect and inspiring and proposing new ways of practicing architecture today,” the exhibition design does not configure itself as a site of design and ultimately lacks the adventurous, aspirational quality of its contents. As a time-honored forum for research and representation engendered in space, it appears the exhibition still remains a relatively under-explored frontier for any experimental practice of architecture. Nevertheless, the tireless investigative spirit of each participant vibrantly resounds and excites its visitors of new practices and forums yet to come.

“The Other Architect” is exhibited at the Arthur Ross Gallery at Columbia University in New York City and closes on Friday, December 2. Click here for more information on how to visit the exhibition.

All images © James Ewing