Lecture date: 2017-01-18
Architecture is often viewed as an elevated art form. This talk marks a departure: not about works of architecture, but about working as an architect. Larger reflections on the notion of architecture interspersed with tragicomic anecdotes from the ‘field’ serve to debunk successive misconceptions looming over our profession, including that of ‘success’ itself. Serving the same powers it strives to critique, architecture is condemned to a perpetual conflict of interest, embroiled in a world of which it is forever unclear who drives it and in which success seems impossible to define - a candid account of architecture in the 21st Century.
Reinier de Graaf is a partner at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), where he heads the work of its think tank AMO, leading various projects to demonstrate the wider relevance of architectural thinking beyond building. De Graaf is currently working on his forthcoming book: ‘Four Walls and a Roof’.