FOOTPRINT 18

Constellation of Awakening:
Benjamin and Architecture

Patrick Healy & Andrej Radman (Eds.)

Focusing on German cultural and architectural theorist Walter Benjamin’s “constellation of awakening,” TU Delft’s Footprint 18 investigates Benjamin’s conceptualization of “dialectical images,” his use of montage, his refusal of notions of both progress and decline, and his effort to demonstrate how images belong not only to a particular time but attain legibility only at a particular time. Famously, according to Benjamin, image is what comes together in a flash to form a new “constellation.” In his Arcades Project, he engaged architecture directly, especially the work of Bötticher, positing an architectural unconscious and the role of the optical as crucial for understanding commodification. Contributions by theorists Patrick Healy, Andrej Radman, Stefan Koller, Lutz Robbers, and Frances Hsu, architects Jolien Paeleman and Rodrigo Rieiro Díaz, and Stephen Michael Witherford Fulbright Research Fellow Ross Lipton, writer and media consultant Sarah K. Stanley and cultural theorist Stéphane Symons.

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FOOTPRINT 19

Vol. 10/2 Spaces of Conflict

Malkit Shoshan & Marc Schoonderbeek (Eds.)

The terrorist attacks at the start of the 21st-century catapulted the issue of space and conflict into the forefront of architectural debates. As a result, existing and newly emerging conflicts in relation to urban space became the focus of attention in architecture. Though military thinking had already had a longstanding tradition in architectural history, the sudden emergence of new spaces of conflict considerably altered architectural discourse. As extreme conditions (including climate change and economic crisis) are threatening to structurally reconfigure our living environments, the theorizing of spatial conflicts has started to incorporate a wide variety of reflections from other disciplines. Conflict areas often prove to be fertile grounds for innovation and for the emergence of new spatial forms. All of these concerns and discussions are gathered together through multiple voices published in the new Issue #19, of Footprint, the bi-annual journal focusing on contemporary architecture.

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Forensis

The Architecture of Public Truth

Forensis (Latin for “pertaining to the forum”) engages the testimony of material objects—such as bones, ruins, toxic substances—as a method of central importance in interpreting how subjects are policed and governed by their states. Developed through the Forensic Architecture Project by theorist Eyal Weizman at Goldsmiths College, University of London, Forensis seeks to expand the scope of contemporary forensics to include a broader historical, theoretical, political and aesthetic context. At the heart of the book is a methodological experiment in which participating architects, artists, filmmakers, lawyers, and theorists employed new technologies and spatial research methods to investigate contemporary issues such as border regimes, urban warfare, and climate change. Investigations were undertaken in Pakistan, Palestine, the Amazon basin, Guatemala, Chile, Bangladesh, Yemen, the United States and the former Yugoslavia among others places. Evidence of state or corporate violence was unearthed for use by prosecution teams, civil society organizations, activist networks, human rights groups, and the United Nations. Innovative investigations aimed at producing new kinds of evidence in this rich collection of essays and research reports suggest many new ways that international prosecutorial teams, political organizations, the UN, and NGOs can engage the material world to open up forums for civic dispute and articulate new claims for justice. Contributors include Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Nabil Ahmed, Maayan Amir, Hisham Ashkar & Emily Dische- Becker, Ryan Bishop, Jacob Burns, Howard Caygill, Gabriel Cuéllar, Eitan Diamond, DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency), Anselm Franke, Grupa Spomenik, Ayesha Hameed, Charles Heller, Helene Kazan, Thomas Keenan, Working Group Four Faces of Omarska, Alessandro Petti, Lorenzo Pezzani, SITU Research, Caroline Sturdy Colls and Eyal Weizman.

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FREEDOM OF USE

Anne Lacaton & Jean-Philippe Vassal

Paris-based architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal believe in the luxury of simplicity. Known for their delicate interventions, they opened their 2015 lecture at Harvard University with a manifesto: Never demolish! Instead, they study and inventory the situation and densify without compressing individual space, promoting access and choice in their generous, open designs. In Freedom of Use, the second title in Harvard GSD’s compelling new Incidents series exploring underlying themes in makers’ process, the architects present a fluid narrative of their built and unbuilt work including a house in Niger made of branches, the expansive Nantes School of Architecture, and a public square in Bordeaux where, after months of study, they came to their design solution: do nothing. The book’s modest photography echoes their philosophy: small black-and-white exterior shots running alongside the text form a dialogue with the color interior photographs gathered at the end of the book.

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FUNCTIONALISM – UTOPIA OR THE WAY FORWARD?

The 5th International Alvar Aalto Symposium

Maija Kärkkäinen

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Game Set and Match II

Kas Oosterhuis and Lukas Feireiss

With the new technical possibilities of worldwide electronic networking and the ubiquity of new media and digital technology in many fields, conventional disciplines gradually dissolve as new “transdisciplines” arise. In contemporary architecture, too, changes give rise to new ideas that come from a multitude of influences. This book brings together the results of the international and interdisciplinary Game Set and Match II Conference - The Architecture Co-Laboratory, directed by Kas Oosterhuis, professor of Architecture at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. Looking at contemporaneous and potential future changes in digitally driven architectural and design practices, it accentuates the move toward experimentation and collaboration, offering a kaleidoscopic view of current developments in the digital design domain. Including contributions from Robert Aish, Raoul Bunschoten, Bernard Cache, Jan Edler and Tim Edler, Georg Flachbart, John Frazer, Mark Goulthorpe, Branko Kolarevic, Anne Nigten, Marcos Novak, Kas Oosterhuis, Katie Salen, Tom Verebes, Peter Weibel and many more.

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GAUDÍ

The Construction of Dreams

Jan Molema

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GLOBAL TOOLS

When Education Coincides with Life

Valerio Borgonuovo & Silvia Franceschini (Eds.)

A comprehensive collection of hitherto unpublished original images and documents, Global Tools: When Education Coincides with Life is a critical retracing of the multidisciplinary program of design education founded in Italy in 1973. With neither students nor teachers at its inception, Global Tools drew from a new generation of designers and figures associated with Radical Architecture, Arte Povera and Conceptual Art before it became an official institution in 1975. Conceived as a dispersed system of workshops and laboratories whose first activities were published in architecture magazine Casabella, Global Tools and its five experimental research and work groups—Body, Communication, Construction, Survival and Theory—promoted the study and use of natural materials to establish an alternative relationship between industry and the intellectual. The heavily illustrated softcover history contextualizes Global Tools within a network of references and links, including critical perspectives on the pedagogical utopia by distinguished thinkers Beatriz Colomina, Franco Raggi, Simon Sadler, Manola Antonioli, Alessandro Vicari, Alison J. Clarke and Maurizio Lazzarato.

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HAUSSMANN FÜR WEINBERG

Trix & Robert Haussmann, Gabrielle Schaad & Ben Weinberg

Equal parts fashion, design and architecture, the collaboration between family-run specialty fashion store Weinberg and the noted modernist Swiss architect/ design team Trix + Robert Haussmann began in the 1980s. Over 25 years together they captured the zeitgeist of the times. The plans, drawings and architectural photographs featured in Haussmann für Weinberg shed light on six projects in which Trix + Haussmann shaped the stores as well as developed atmospheric and innovative concepts for fashion brands such as Lanvin and Courrèges. Richly illustrated with historical news clippings and company brochures, the publication includes a conversation between art historian Gabriel Schaad, Trix + Robert Haussmann, and the architect duo Isa Stürm and Urs Wolf, who renovated the Weinberg women’s boutique in late 2014 as the book went to press.

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HIGH-RISE AND THE SUSTAINABLE CITY

Han Meyer & Daan Zandbelt (Eds.)

Can high-rises make cities more sustainable? The question of whether—and how—high-rises can play a substantial role in creating advantageous conditions for sustainable cities is the focus of ten essays in this compact well-illustrated book. Is it possible to design high-rises that energize city life while contributing to a healthy environment through a reduction of materials, energy and costs? Many argue that high-rises deliver positive environmental effects, such as densification, reduction of traffic and C02 emissions. But is it really that simple? Addressing these key questions are international architects, urban designers and professors Peter Bosselmann, Markus Appenzeller, Lora Nicolaou, Meta Berghauser Pont, Emiel Arends, Frank van der Hoeven, Steffen Nijhuis, Andy van den Dobbelsteen, Kees Kaan, Robert Powell, Daan Zandbelt and Han Meyer. A wonderful and timely addition to the architecture, engineering and urban design libraries throughout the world.

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