Miessen, M. and S. Basar (2004). Did someone say participate?
An atlas of spatial practice. Boston, MIT Press.
Introduction: did we mean participate or did we mean something else?
In the wake of 9/11 the relationships between sp[ace, politics and power have come to the fore in almost all zones of cultural activity (22) ROLE OF THE ARCHITECT:To dismantle the idea of the architect being the one in charge of space (22) According to the authors, this dismantling is being implemented in many disciplines which approach themes which were once considered as a disciplinary and practical prerogative of the architect; these spatial knowledges are being produced by architects going beyond classic views of architectural theory and practice, and by non-architects venturing in the social practices related to space, These new and disciplinarily blurred spatial knowledges have the common interest of SI: understanding, produc[ing] and altering of spatial conditions as a pre-requisite of identifying the broader reaches of political reality (23)
Murphy, M. (2004). Glimpses of a future architecture, 68-79.
Architecture is neither a dangerous nor an impotent profession, but a pliable system for the application of physical constraints and the effectuation of political and social ends (68). The greatest asset of architecture is its inability to exist without performing both organizational and psychological functions. (68) it is the inescapable symbiosis of pace and psychological state that is critical to a future where architecture assumes an important role in a drive to increase empathy levels between humans (68) space will become the primary tool for disorientation and demoralization and will result, ultimately in the violation of human rights (69) If empathy requires observation and contact, a social-spatial ambition to remove architectural obstacles to human interaction and to introduce spatial features that encourage communication it becomes all the more pertinent in the context of hospitals and other environments where psychological stresses are commonplace.
The most futuristic architecture concentrate on new materials technologies (or
organizational changes which seem to justify non-Cartesian geometries) The future is a design problem (79)
Weizman, E. (2004). Architecture, power unplugged: Gaza evacuations, 275-272.
Homes have alternatively been referred to as a physical entities embodying power relations, the symbol of a set of ideologies, a sentient (even haunted) active agent, a military weapon, a diplomatic bargaining chip, an economic resource, the fabric of a crime, a physical hazard, an accumulation of toxic waste, the infrastructure of utopia, dystopia, or sometimes both. (258) [the chapter] question[s] the more general notions concerning the possible re-use of architecture, and in particular the architecture of exclusion, violence, and control at the moment such architecture is unplugged from the socio-political-military power that had been sustaining it. (258) geometry of vision = shaping the built environment, using architecture in ways which make it easier to survey the surrounding environment. (259) In [] The Wretched of the Earth Frantz Fanon already warned of the possible corruption of national, anti-colonial regimes insisting that the physical and the territorial organization of the colonial world may eventually mark out the lines on which a colonized society will be organized (269)