Decentrality

Seminar Theory of Architecture
Module 25405, LV 623110, Master 1st year, 4 SWS Monday, 13:45-17:00, LG 2C 315
Prof. Dr. Albert Kirchengast

The concept of "decentrality" is both a starting point and a vessel for sketching a phenomenology of "new rurality" in a time of coexistence of climate crisis and growth paradigm, of frenzied competition (whether in the mirror or in the wallet) and the unbroken, mechanistic-technical promise of modernity. It speaks of the fundamental economy, the circularity of nature, the vernacular, etc., and thus gathers concepts to gain a critical perspective on our subject and contemporary society. The goal of the seminar is to keep coming back to the possibilities and opportunities of design, and thus to everyday life and the quality of our immediate living spaces. To reinterpret Bernard Rudofsky and to follow in it nevertheless: "A new way of living is necessary" - so also a new way of (living together).

Guest in the seminar:
Florian Aicher
Region as a chance? Rotis and beyond
May 8, 2023

Jörn Köppler and Simon Strauß
Europe, memory, imagination
June 26, 2023

Care - Design as Care

Integration module 13776, LV 623111, Master 1st year, 4 SWS
Tuesday, 13:45-17:00, LG 4b B3.21
Prof. Dr. Albert Kirchengast

The seminar is intended as a research workshop and accompanies the design in the master studio Meier Unger. Together we will explore the question of what it might mean to conceive architectural design as a form of "care". Care speaks of attention to fellow human beings, living beings and things. Not feasibility and controllability, but adaptation, transformation, and at the same time pursuit and continuity are essential. The matter is approached with respect and empathy, with technical craftsmanship and the ability to dialogue out of knowing empathy. How might these components and concepts become part of a specific design practice? Where does this already succeed, since in the future it should rather be about conversion and repurposing? What impact would this have on our core competence - what kind of living space would then emerge?