Critical Judgment. Architectural Criticism and the Politics of City Form

While the success of architectural design, as both a product and as an icon of entrepreneurial prestige, has grown immensely in recent years, its power as a critical instrument of political and social responsibility has waned. The public popularity of architecture is, ironically, inversely proportional to an increase of political powerlessness and cultural disillusionment many architects feel about their effective contribution and relevance to the built environment. This symposium offers this reality as a platform for an intellectually committed agency. It provides the possibility to reflect upon the way we imagine the politics and the form of the city, along with the contribution of architectural criticism to both. It will also pose new opportunities for architecture as a design practice and provide an opportunity to rethink architecture’s history, criticism, and theory.