The past few years have brought the necessity of theory as liberatory practice to the foreground of discussions on architecture. The interconnected crises of war, enforced migrations, global warming, and structural inequality have put pressure on how we understand what architecture is and does. These events have highlighted the role of architecture in the rise of land dispossession, material extraction, labor struggle, and conflicting epistemologies. Thinking with bell hooks, the course reframes architectural theory as a liberatory practice. Thinking with Manfredo Tafuri, with respond to these challenges by rethinking architecture’s position within the relations of production.

In this course we examine contemporary spatial thinking that responds to these challenges and seeks to address them through four interrelated topics: lands, materials, labors, and knowledges. We start by questioning where architecture happens, the land we stand on, the ways in which lands are transformed into real estate, and the role architects play in this process. We then move on to the materials, resources, and objects that architecture is made of, as well as the processes of extraction they are imbricated in. We address the bodies that participate in the making and maintenance of architecture, from building labor to the role of the architect as worker. We conclude by reflecting on the motivations that animate the discipline and its teaching, and the ways in which it is being unlearned and reimagined.

Students will be evaluated on class participation, discussion facilitation, short writing assignments, and a research project. This course is planned as a “lecture” with many small group activities and other alternative pedagogies. It qualifies as a BTC Distributional Elective.