Vyjayanthi Rao on architecture research in a globalized world

Last month, Terreform co-director Vyjayanthi Rao was invited to take part of “Global Demands: Architecture Research in a Globalized World” held at Architekturzentrum Wien.

Whether in the sphere of architecture critique or on the market of speculative real estate investment, architecture is increasingly becoming the subject of global circulation.

For contemporary architecture production this presents numerous challenges: How can we do justice to the complexities of global dynamics as well as very local peculiarities in our work?  Where do we start when the issue is alternative approaches to spatial renewal? The two architecture researchers Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer have invited fellow participants in their international projects to discuss these questions and to develop perspectives for the future.

Guests:

Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, University of California San Diego

Rahul Mehrotra, Harvard GSD

Vyjayanthi Rao, Terreform, New York

Irit Rogoff, Goldsmiths, London

AbdouMaliq Simone, Max Planck Institute, Göttingen

Moderated by: Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer, Vienna University of Technology

Conference in full can be viewed: Centre for Global Architecture

Vyjayanthi Rao at the "Global Demands" panel on 28 May 2018 at Architekturzentrum Wien.

Launch of Spaces of Disappearance at Center for Architecture

To date, dozens of political histories, participant autobiographies, journalistic accounts, and academic investigations have addressed the many aspects of the War on Terror. Urban Research’s (UR) latest book, Spaces of Disappearance: The Architecture of Extraordinary Rendition by architectural researcher and educator Jordan H. Carver, adds to the national conversation and reckoning with torture by providing an in-depth analysis of the US’s secret network of black site prisons as a project of architectural production.

From the book’s introduction by architectural historian and theorist Felicity D. Scott: “Reflecting back on this recent history of violence through a critical architectural lens, Carver articulates a compelling conceptual and evidentiary terrain and an ethico-political framework through which to return not just to the war in Iraq but also to that in Afghanistan and the even more nebulous War on Terror.

On September 21, the Center for Architecture welcomed Carver for a conversation with Laura Pitter, Senior National Security Counsel at Human Rights Watch and Amrit Singh of the Open Society Justice Initiative. The conversation was moderated by Reinhold Martin, Professor of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP.

To date, dozens of political histories, participant autobiographies, journalistic accounts, and academic investigations have addressed the many aspects of the War on Terror. Urban Research’s (UR) latest book, Spaces of Disappearance: The Architecture of Extraordinary Rendition by architectural researcher and educator Jordan H. Carver, adds to the national conversation and reckoning with torture by providing an in-depth analysis of the US’s secret network of black site prisons as a project of architectural production. From the book’s introduction by architectural historian and theorist Felicity D. Scott: “Reflecting back on this recent history of violence through a critical architectural lens, Carver articulates a compelling conceptual and evidentiary terrain and an ethico-political framework through which to return not just to the war in Iraq but also to that in Afghanistan and the even more nebulous War on Terror.” On September 21, the Center for Architecture welcomes Carver for a conversation with Laura Pitter, Senior National Security Counsel at Human Rights Watch and Amrit Singh of the Open Society Justice Initiative. The conversation will be moderated by Reinhold Martin, Professor of Architecture at Columbia GSAPP. Speakers: Jordan H. Carver, Author, Spaces of Disappearance: Architecture of Extraordinary Rendition Laura Pitter, Senior National Security Counsel, Human Rights Watch – US Program Amrit Singh, Head, Accountability, Liberty & Transparency Cluster, Open Society Justice Initiative Deen Sharp, Co-Director, Terreform Moderator: Reinhold Martin, Professor of Architecture, Columbia GSAPP

Deen Sharp at The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture MIT

Terreform co-director Deen Sharp has been awarded a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2018-2019).

Join Deen on 10/22 for his lecture, Lebanon and the Fog of Reconstruction: Between the Future and Survival, as part of the Fall 2018 AKPIA lecture series.