Institute gta, Theory of Architecture, Prof. Dr. Ákos Moravánszky
East West Central 02: Re-scaling the Environment. New Landscapes of Design, 1960–80
Following the international conference 'Re-humanizing Architecture: New Forms of Community, 1950-1970', to be held on 16/17 May 2014 at the ETH Zürich, this second symposium of the project "East West Central" seeks to trace the development of novel approaches and strategies for a systemic and comprehensive design of the built environment and for architectural and territorial planning since the 1960s. The expansion of architecture to consider the whole environment, the shift from objects to processes, and the turn to systems and networks of distribution of both resources as well as people went in hand not only with rapid modernization, technological and scientific progress, but also with a rise of utopian ideals and technocratic beliefs how these processes could be managed efficiently. Transdiciplinary encounters with new subjects such as cybernetics but also with established disciplines such as economic planning and sociology had a profound influence on architecture and urbanism.
We ask to what extent these innovations and shifts in both scale and method within the practices of architecture and urbanism were symptoms of convergence and/or outcomes of the competition between different economic and political systems. One of the chief objectives of the competing systems and economies of Western and Eastern Europe was the idea to provide a targeted output of available resources by interventions of the government or of other agencies. The conference will examine strategies behind the material, conceptual and design-oriented changes that have fundamentally transformed the European landscapes across the East-West dichotomy. It also seeks to trace exchanges and knowledge transfer between agents across the political divide through international professional networks such as the UIA and its meetings, for example the 1967 conference in Prague with the topic 'Architecture and the Human Milieu' or its 1972 meeting in Varna, Bulgaria on the subject of leisure.
We seek contributions that focus on discourses, accounts and images of urban, economic or cultural systems and hierarchies, which derived from new ideas of scale, efficiency and centrality and which were fostered by new means of traffic, programming and production in all parts of Europe. Papers should address transnational phenomena within architecture and planning that sought to give shape to the age of large-scale systems of supply and consumption, travel and leisure. We hope that contributions will consider the hopes that underpinned the implementation of new scales and systems as well as their often-conflicting actuality, due to the inertia of material and social realities. The organizers encourage comparative studies that reflect upon:
different methodological approaches for system-based designs of architecture,infrastructures and the built environment, including but not limited to the theories and utopian projects of Western and Eastern European members of the GEAM group, individuals from institutions such as the former Soviet institute for design research VNIITE, the HfG ULM, and others.
the impact of territorial reorganization, shifting centralities, comprehensive planning and new technologies on architecture with respect to processes of urbanization, industrialization or the intensification of agriculture and the broader idea of efficiency.
the architecture of infrastructures such as networks of supply, service and consumption, the construction of highways and other large-scale structures such as oil and gas pipelines and their impact on territorial ecologies, as well as new approaches to landscape and increased environmental awareness that result from these processes.
Please send an abstract of up to 300 words and a brief biography (max. 150 words) to:
Abstracts can be submitted until Friday, 25 April 2014. The selected participants will be informed by Monday, 26 May 2014. Full papers are due two weeks ahead of the symposium, on 14 November 2014.
A limited number of travel allowances might be available for successful applicants.
For further details and updates please visit: http://www.moravanszky.arch.ethz.ch/veranstaltungen/eastwestcentral-02
Prof. Dr. Ákos Moravánszky (chair), Dr. Karl R. Kegler (coordinator)
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