ࡱ> <>; "bjbj 0oo{{{{ f(****** #Z**[?[[[v([([[J${!: U0#[#[{{ i:   Thursday Night Lecture Paul Pholeros Transcript of Introduction by Glen Hill Before I formally introduce Paul, I want to talk a little about the issues Pauls work raises for me, particularly in my role as an educator. Paul is, for me, like a thorn in the side of architecture. Or better, like a stone in the shoe of architecture. His work is a constant reminder of what architecture should be about, but isnt. * I am at the moment particularly intrigued with the recent emergence of minimalist architecture. Its disciplined formality seems to be offered up almost as an antidote to the exuberance and complexity of late postmodern and post-structuralist architecture typified by work of Gehry and Eisenman. But when I talk about this particular architecture with my students, I inevitably say something to the effect that this new minimalist architecture is like heroic modernist architecture at the beginning of the twentieth century, but without the utopian social vision. I dont mean to imply that this new minimalist architecture is without content, rather that the content is now about much less grand visions. So in the work of Silvestrin or Pawson, for example, we can see that issues embedded in the work, such as personal spirituality, are far more tied to the individual than the society as a whole. When I reflect on the loss of the grand social vision for architecture I am in some ways saddened, because the current problems of our world are equally great, if not greater, than they were 100 years ago. Could it be that architecture has lost its nerve, that it perceives the problems we now face as simply too great, and has therefore withdrawn into itself? A lot of the educational focus of the design studio has now shifted to formal experimentation. I should say at this point that I am directing this comment at myself, as much as anyone. I have been particularly fascinated by the anti rational (or perhaps better a-rational) formal play that grounds the production of much recent architectural work. This approach has been authorised and popularised by the now global architectural media. On one side I would actually argue that our students need to understand such global architectural trajectories. But I can also see that by focusing on this formal architectural experimentation, other possibilities, such as certain critical social and political dimensions, are inevitably occluded (or at least diminished in importance). Because of this loss of faith that architecture can have a significant role in the wider social and political environment, serious attempts to understand, critique or influence the social and political context in which architecture is inevitably embedded, seem to have been put aside in favour of a far more narrow concern for the architectural object itself. I believe that the narrowing of architectural concern strips us of the real opportunity to use the very special skills we have as designers in the most socially and politically effective way. When talking to my students I use the metaphor of car design to try to get this point across. If we were, for example, to ask a car designer to try to reduce the environmental impact of the car, they would most likely focus on the design of the car itself, particularly its technological gadgetry. Because of their immersion in the object, they would probably be unable to see the possibility of finding design solutions that might, lets say, eliminate the need for cars altogether. Returning to heroic modernism for a moment, one could make a case that the modern movement not only undertook radical experiments in architectural form making, but that they linked this architectural enterprise to experiments in large scale social and political reform. It is the loss of this form of programmatic experimentation, properly linked to the architectural domain, that I find most lamentable. But nobody should be surprised by the demise of the grand social vision of heroic modernism. What separates us in time from the work of these early modernists is the intervention of an event called postmodernism. And here I dont mean the very dead architectural movement that cannibalised classical works, but the remarkable philosophical and social shifts that started in the nineteen sixties (or earlier) and are still with us. Looking from our perspective today, the major flaw with heroic modernism was not just its often nave sense of architectural determinism, but its belief that it could impose a single grand social vision on the world. Postmodernism arrived as a recognition that all such grand visions, whether they be attempts to impose a particular historical narrative, or a particular way of living, or a particular set of social values, or a particular aesthetic, were all ultimately the attempts of one hegemonic culture to dominate others. Postmodern social movements like multi-culturalism attempted to undo this cultural domination and allow every culture to be valued in its own right, and follow its own lights. The perception that one cultural form is superior to another and therefore has the right (indeed the obligation) to impose its cultural form on others is now pretty well discredited (though this news does not seemed to have reached the current US administration). Although the advent of postmodernism might have taken away the legitimacy of a single grand social vision for architecture, I actually think it opened a whole new set of opportunities for social and political engagement. These opportunities are now, appropriately, at the level of facilitating the aspirations local groups and local cultures for me a far more worthwhile enterprise than the imposition of inappropriate grand visions. The difficulty today is that local political and social issues have little attraction for the dominant globalised architectural media. Compared with the feticisation of the architectural image, these issues are simply not sexy. This is where Paul comes in. As a practitioner Paul has been committed to the aspirations of marginalised communities. But equally importantly he has taken every opportunity to communicate the value of this work. By doing so he has helped to construct a desire in others, not least architectural students, to take up the task. * Paul Pholeros is a practicing architect. He is adjunct associate professor of architecture and Health Sciences here at our university. And he is one of 3 directors of health habitat. The other 2 directors being a medical doctor and a public and environmental health professional who trained as an anthropologist. Paul also has the distinction of being the only architecture student to be given 110% for an assignment. Please welcome Paul Pholeros. $:CDMN^06). 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