Princeton University School of Architecture
Friday, April 7, 2017
Betts Auditorium, 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

“One Complex Situation: Histories of Observation in Architecture” is a one-day symposium that will examine how the values and practices of observation have shaped architectural research, design, history and pedagogy. Architectural thinkers have long used the language of observation to distinguish their work from other modes of experience, but scholars have only recently dedicated themselves to historicizing the contingent nature of this choice. The symposium assembles six scholars presenting case studies from Europe, America, Africa and East Asia that situate architectural knowledge-making within specific epistemological conjunctures. At a time when the so-called boundaries of architectural research are in question and the nature of truth both in the discipline and outside of it are changing, the day’s events show that observation and what is observed form one “complex situation” that cannot be taken for granted.

Organizer

Matthew Mullane
PhD Candidate, Princeton University School of Architecture

Participants

Zeynep Çelik Alexander
University of Toronto

Charles Davis
UNC Charlotte

Ed Eigen
Harvard GSD

Ayala Levin
Princeton University

Jonathan Reynolds
Barnard College/Columbia University

Hadas Steiner
SUNY Buffalo