The interdisciplinary conference “Streitsache: Architecture as Matter of Contention” intends to probe the complex relation between architecture and conflict. There are numerous instances in which architectural objects become objects of conflict, ‘bones of contention, a Streitsache. Conceiving of architecture as a Streitsache generates new architectural knowledge, including knowledge on the interactions that emerge from and through the objects of contention. Architectural things, whether in the form of architectural details, buildings or entire cities, are actors whose agency becomes manifest in conflictual processes. The field of politics and the negotiation of law is constituted through and by them. As thresholds Streitsachen are politically operative because they render conflicts visible and negotiable. The debates surrounding the Stuttgart 21 project, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, or Les Halles in Paris could serve as recent examples.

The aim of the conference is to expand the scope of thinking about architecture, its function and character, into fields of the theory of law and political philosophy. As agents of the political, ’things of contention render plurality and heterogeneous interests visible and negotiable. Architecture’s dissension opens up a new space for collective thinking and action.

The conference is interdisciplinary and addresses scholars and practitioners from the fields of architecture, art, political sciences, legal studies, cultural studies, anthropology, science and technology studies, cultural technology studies, and media philosophy.

Thursday, 29 January 2015

  • 13:00-13:30 Axel Sowa and Lutz Robbers, Aachen : Welcome remarks and introduction

Panel 1 Negotiations 

  • 13:30-14:00 Tanja Herdt, Zürich : Architecture as Negotiation: The Inter-Action Centre of Cedric Price
  • 14:00-14:30 Kush Patel, Ann Arbor : Configuring Space, Configuring Expectations: Lucien Kroll and the Architecture of La Mémé, Brussels
  • 14:30-15:00 Dirk De Meyer, Ghent : ‘Novitatem meam contemnunt, ego illorum ignaviam’: Aesthetics and politics in the plates of Piranesi’s Parere

Panel 2 Politics and Identity

  • 16:00-16:30 Adam Page, Lüneburg : Making and Unmaking the Future: High-Rise Living, Failed Futures and Violence in Belfast’s Divis Flats Complex
  • 16:30-17:00 Sarah M. Schlachetzki, Bern : Architecture, “Re-Germanization Initiatives”, and Polish National Identity
  • 17:00-17:30 Monika Motylinska, Berlin : Streitsache Nachkriegsmoderne. Eine Diskursanalyse
  • 19:00 Keynote: Jörn Janssen, London : Verspäteter Nachruf: Der Architekt im Klassenkampf

Friday, 30. January 2015

Panel 3 Theory

  • 9:30-10:00 Albena Yaneva, Manchester : Sites of Politics: on Buildings as Matters of Concern, the Architectural Practice of World-Making and the Enactment of the Political
  • 10:00-10:30 Libero Andreotti, Paris / Nadir Lahiji, Canberra : Architecture and the Politics of Conflict: From Antagonism to Dissensu
  • 10:30-11:00 Gert Hasenhütl, Wien : Notes on the Concept of ‚Quasi-Object‘

Panel 4 1970s

  • 13:30-14:00 Craig Buckley, New Haven : Plastic Thought, Plastic Objects - The debate over technology on the eve of May 1968
  • 14:00-14:30 Kim Förster, Zürich : „Dies ist unser Haus“-Zur Genealogie des Nachhaltigkeitsdenkens und -handelns in der deutschen Stadterneuerung (und der Gentrifizierung in Berlin-Kreuzberg)
  • 14:30-15:00 Isabelle Doucet, Manchester : Counter-projects as political-aesthetic assemblages

Panel 5 Justifications

  • 16:00-16:30 Talia Margalit / Adriana Kemp, Tel Aviv : Justifying Urban Schemes: The values leading institutional responses to planning objections in Israel
  • 16:30-17:00 Nina Valerie Kolowratnik, New York : The Language of Secret Proof. A Notational System as Architectural Expertise in the Jemez Pueblo Land Claim
  • 17:00-17:30 Ulku Ozten, Eskişehir : The Myth of Program/ing: Contemporary Conceptual Foundations of a Conflict-Free Architecture
  • 19:00 Werner Gephart, Bonn : Recht als Architektur

Saturday, 31. January 2015

Panel 6 Contemporary Sites of Contention

  • 9:00-9:30 Athanasios Lazarou, Adelaide : Temporal Capabilities of Protest Space and the Architectural Object in Crisis-stricken Athens
  • 9:30-10:00 Pavlos Fereos, London: Rebuilding No Man’s Land
  • 10:30-11:00 Graham Owen, New Orleans : “I Have No Power”: Zaha Hadid and the Ethics of Globalized Practice
  • 11:00-11:30 Gabu Heindl, Wien : Cause of Dispute, Test Case for Politics: The High-rise Building as Matter of Concern