The School of Architecture welcomes Bernard Tschumi as a Cejas Eminent Scholar for spring 2008. Mr. Tschumi will give four public lectures during the course of the semester. This graduate seminar complements the lectures, and allows students to engage Mr. Tschumi in a discursive setting. The lectures begin at 2 pm, and will be held in the main auditorium (PCA135) at the School of Architecture Building.
LECTURE 1: ARCHITECTURE AND EVENT
January 25
There is no architecture without event. The role of the architect as provocateur: relationship of indifference, reciprocity, conflict. Paradox of architecture: product of the mind vs. product of experience: limits, transgression, conflict. The architect does not create architecture so much as sets the conditions from which it springs.
LECTURE 2: JUXTAPOSITIONS/SUPERIMPOSITIONS
February 22
Architecture is provocative when two architectural concepts are juxtaposed or superimposed: programmatically, formally, or temporaneously.
LECTURE 3: VECTORS AND ENVELOPES
March 14
For buildings with fewer constraints against which to play, the architectural strategy must rely on different means. Activity springs from movement; movement through spaces creates vectors in space. Sequencing is critical to engaging space with its users as it generates a relationship between time, space, and movement. Sequences of movement constitute vectors. The rest of the building (roof, walls, partitions) constitute the envelope. Vectors activate; envelopes define.
LECTURE 4: CONCEPT/CONTEXT/CONTENT
April 04
Concepts give meaning and coherence to a building. Concepts organize and define how architecture functions; context is the geographical, historical, cultural, or political conditions of a project. The synthesis of context and concept are what defines the content of a project. Context and content may relate as follows through indifference, reciprocity, or conflict.