Programme and speakers (PDF, 1.1 MB, new tab)

Critical Perspectives Acting from Within

The 2018 edition of LAS will address architectural interpretation and creation as a matterof non-orthodox practices, presenting experiences from architectural practice wherearchitectural design and disciplinary reflection have challenged the conformal narrativesof architecture and its culture.

Processes of professionalization – both individual and collective – are processes ofacculturation where some perspectives and experiences are brought to the backgroundin favor of others. Where there is a strong acculturation there is also a risk of making one’sown interpretation of the world into something valid everywhere and for everyone. Suchsingularization tends to neglect the controversies entangled to architectural making andthat architecture and the places we consider as common often are contested and undercontinuous negotiation. The symposium will reflect on this by giving voice to architecturalwork acting on a recognition of diversity, where stories running parallel to thosecommonly told, are given precedence.

Though it is important to recognize and mediate a multitude of experiences intoarchitectural practice and discourse, we need not to end here. Rather we should integrateand learn from these examples by bringing forward and discuss ways of working withexperiences less known in everyday architectural practice. The architectural disciplinemay through such discussions learn new ways in how to search for and listen to voices notyet heard, and how to tell stories not yet shared, in order to deal with the multiple waysarchitecture takes part in everyday life.

The invited speakers share an interest in and experience of working with aspects of ’home’,including the urban, societal or political conditions that situate architectural processesoriented towards lived worlds. Housing, and its architectures and built environment thusbecomes a way of framing a discussion on diversity and architectural practices' opportunityto deal with social and cultural differences.