Interregnum I: Urban Agencies & Dei Ex Machina

Introduction film.

In WINTER SEMESTER 2021/2022, STUDENTS of the studio "ARCHITEKTUR:URBAN" were called upon by visiting professorship “C/O NOW” to consider the influence of CRISES on THE SHAPE OF ARCHITECTURE AND THE CITY in the PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE. They were asked to INDETIFY and DESCRIBE traces of these crises in LINZ's URBAN FABRIC and to break down their ORIGINS. Many of the PHENOMENA that have come to light using various URBAN RESEARCH METHODS are beyond the scope of the ARCHITECT's or PLANNER's JOB DESCRIPTION. This fact not only opened up a CRITICAL VIEW onto the RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION of our own DISCIPLINE, but also allowed us to DISCUSS the CONCEPT of "URBAN AGENCIES" - the ability to read the INTERCONNETIONS, among other things, POLITICAL, SOCIAL and ECONOMIC contexts in architecture and the city, the KNOWLEDGE of the associated ACTORS and the ability to make this VISIBLE and UNDERSTANDABLE for THIRD PARTIES.

Such THINKING entails taking a certain DISTANCE from the own field, its STRATEGIES and METHODS. This made it all the more important for us to take the bold step of TRANSFORMING the INSIGHTS gained in the first two stages back into the field of architecture and the city - with the even bolder INTENTION of INVENTING architectural and urban planning PROJECTS that attempt to respond directly to questions raised by the crises with urban agencies: The DEI EX MACHINA.

Concept and teaching:
c/o now (Andrijana Ivanda & Tobias Hönig + Markus Rampl, Paul Reinhardt, Duy An Tran, Ksenija Zdešar)

Inputs:
Sarah Lamparter (Büro Otto Sauhaus, Berlin), Lore Stangl & Josef-Matthias Printschler (Metatektur, Wien), et al.