IKA S2021
6
A Building?? – You’re kidding, right? Elephant in the room
Just what is it that makes the imagination of a building today so different, apparently so unappealing?
Let’s look at the subject from the end for once, from the “end of studies”. For many members of the IKA community, this end – by its very nature also a beginning – is the thesis project of the IKA Master’s Programme in Architecture.
Free adaption of a Richard Hamilton collage title: Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (1956)
Over the past three years, 14 out of 44 master thesis projects at IKA focused, in one way or another, on the design of a (terrestrial) building, or buildings. In this period, the number of building designs gradually decreased from year to year. (The term “building” is used here in its broadest sense). In 2020 twelve master thesis projects qualified for the IKA’s internal nomination procedure for the prizes of the Academy. None of them were projects that investigated the potential functions of a building in contemporary societies and actual environments, or in nearby futures, in terms of design. The eligible projects didn’t include any plans for architectural structures or constructions that would have expressed, by all the available means of architectural conception and representation, their authors’ true desire to realize these plans in the actual physical world. Hence, the elaboration of building proposals presently does not seem to be of overwhelming interest to a majority of IKA students when facing their final project in architectural studies. This is remarkable. It needs to be acknowledged and considered. And yet, it would be worthwhile – for students and faculty – to thoroughly explore what it is that constitutes this phenomenon, and to draw conclusions from the resulting findings.
