Seminar Courses 2021Autumn. YR 4/5 School of Architecture KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Course codes for seminar courses YR 4: A42SEH YR 5: A52SEH
Seminars Autumn 2021
Thordis Arrhenius.................................... Making History Anders Bergström..............Stockholm Exhibition 1930 Victor Edman..........Svensk Restaureringshistoria Catharina Gabrielsson.......................................... Dreamwork Katja Grillner + Meike Schalk..................Architecture and Gender Helena Mattsson............. How will We live Together? Karin Matz, Helen Runting, Rutger Sjögrim........................................14,495 Flats Pål Röjgård................................ Spatial Readings Claes Sörstedt, Erik Wingquist, Malin Wennerholm............................ DIY Thesis Booklet Erik Stenberg...........Million Program Era Housing
Seminar Courses
Making History – Postmodern Architecture under Pressure Thordis Arrhenius After strong protests Snøhettas proposal for restoring AT&T Headquarters by Philip Johnson was stopped. The hashtag SAVEATT brought together the architectural community from Robert Stern and Terry Farrell to Sir Norman Foster in a plea to save an icon building of postmodernism. As a result, in July 2018 AT&T’s former headquarters (built 1984) was designated the status as an individual landmark and protected; the youngest monument on Manhattan. Was the 2018 protection of the foremost post-modern icon on Manhattans a sign of the end of postmodernism or a beginning of a new monu-mental history postmodernism? With postmodernism as our case this seminar course will explore how architecture relate to its recent past. By re-reading central pomo-texts the seminar will focus on the entangled relationship between the architect, the image, and the building. We will explore how narratives of precedence, influence and media generate monumental histories and discourses.
The Archive of the Stockholm Exhibition 1930 Anders Bergström Sweden’s most referred architectural event serves here as a case study for a critical historiography. Ever since the Stockholm Exhibition opened in 1930, its importance has been generally acknowledged as a breakthrough for modernism in Sweden. Although criticized at the time, the exhibition was included in the canon of modern architecture at an early stage. As the exhibition soon turned into a virtual object, however, its reception must now be based on primary material that can be referred to as the “archive”. The seminar highlights this material, consisting of drawings, photographs, documents and printed texts, as well as the limited remains of the exhibition itself. ArkDes Collection: photo Gustaf W:son Cronquist 1930.
Svensk restaureringshistoria Victor Edman Seminariet samordnas med en fristående kurs, som genomförs på svenska, med undervisning både för- och eftermiddag och med några avvikande kursdagar. Det motsvarar alltså två seminariekurser och antalet platser är begränsade. Syftet är att ge grundläggande kunskaper om 1800- och 1900-talens teori och historia på byggnadsrestaureringens område i Sverige, med vissa parallella utblickar mot omvärlden. Ämnet behandlas i en serie föreläsningar med efterföljande litteraturseminarier. Texterna är valda för att spegla en debatt och en praktik som pågick i samtiden. Varje kursdag inleds med en föreläsning, som sätter in texterna i ett historiskt perspektiv, och därefter följer en seminariediskussion. Please note: A) This seminar i only taught in Swedish B) It is a double course, i.e. longer and with more credits C) Number of places available is very limited.
Malmöhus under restoration.
Dreamwork Catharina Gabrielsson Based on a philosophical understanding of critique, creation and the imaginary, the course will explore the implications of dreams in architecture and probe into utopias and dystopias, renderings, visions and future scenarios. Incorporating psychoanalysis and popular culture, we will look into the complex temporality of dreams, both a means of coping with the past and a projection into the future. A central concern is architecture’s role in shaping the yet-to-come, drawing on the history of the avant-garde and the “wake-up call” of postmodernism. The seminar will combine visual presentations with close readings and discussions of designated texts. Divided into groups, students will be required to present a theme to the rest of the class and curate a discussion. The individual assignment will be to write a short reflection accompanied by an illustration.
Kepsen av MYCKET. Foto: Ricard Estay. Courtesy: MYCKET
Architecture and Gender: Positionings, Intersections, Ethics of care, Specificities Katja Grillner and Meike Schalk This seminar course provides an introduction to architecture and gender, and develops tools for pursuing feminist articulations and interpretations of architecture as discipline and profession. In the course we will study contemporary feminist theory and architectural practices and investigate how architecture and other built structures relate to them. The course is divided into eight seminars structured around four modules. Each module consists of two seminars with introductions, discussions and reflections on presented readings and projects. The modules are thematically organised addressing in order Positionings, Intersections, Ethics of care and Specificities. The seminar is taught together with the continuing education course Architecture and Gender: Introduction (AD236V).
How will We Live Together? Intentional communities and the radical potential of domestic space and the everyday life Helena Mattsson "We need a new spatial contract. In the context of widening political divides and growing economic inequalities, we call on architects to imagine spaces in which we can generously live together". This is stated by Hashim Sarkis, the curator of the ongoing Venice Biennale. With the pandemic as a horizon, the topic of the Biennale is even more urgent. This seminar course will digitally visit the Biennale to critically examine experiments in alternative ways of organizing and giving form to everyday life – intentional communities – through history up until today. A house is not the same as a home, but what is the site for domestic life ? You are encouraged to speculate on collective living environments' future potentials and investigate history as a site for radical phantasies.
14,495 Flats Karin Matz, Helen Runting, Rutger Sjögrim What (the hell) is contemporary Swedish residential architecture doing, amidst the foggy conditions of a late-capitalist, twenty-first century Welfare State, with a view to its construction booms and housing shortages? What are the demands that this architecture answers to, and what problems of its own might it be wrestling with? What forms of life does it dream of accommodating and which does it normalize, naturalize, or exclude? Through the course “14,495 Flats,” students will analyze contemporary architecture, be given an introduction to tools of architectural critique, and access to an archive of plans compiled and published by Secretary in the book of the same name (2021). Pages from “14,495 Flats” (Secretary, 2021)
Spatial Readings and Compositional Strategies Pål Röjgård Harryan The architectural composition is an act to organize and define borders that articulate spatial relations. Where does something start and where does it end? What is inside and what is outside. How does mass and void meet and how do we reflect upon the space? The notions of space touched by the civilized world is a result of human actions through time. I. The role of the architect is to organize and articulate these conditions while composing the spatial setting. The combination of mass and void experienced by our own physiological and psychological state give different spatial phenomenon that define any site. This seminar series will focus on how to sort out and order different spatial characters and make them part of a language which can generate new spatial compositions. The purpose is to approach what might define useful compositional strategies in creation of architectural work.
DIY Thesis Booklet Claes Sörstedt, Erik Wingquist, Malin Wennerholm A Diploma project at KTH starts with a thesis booklet. Instead of seeing it as just another compulsory hand-in, we think it is a great tool - and - a chance to start thinking and planning a significant and the last project in your education. We’ll try to leverage the crafting of the booklet to something else than just a formal hand-in. It can and should be a statement of your ambitions more like a useful tool for your upcoming work. As a start-up for your Diploma, we’ll familiarize ourselves with the framework of the Diploma, methods, processes, planning but also tools and the experience from different Studio tutors. This course will set aside time and give you resources to explore different paths. The course will be fully digital.
Million Program Era Housing Wood and Concrete Prefabrication Systems Erik Stenberg This seminar course will study the similarities and differences between the development of contemporary wooden prefabrication systems and the Post War concrete panel systems for mass housing in Sweden. The architects and builders engaged in the construction of Sweden’s mass housing areas during the Post War period developed at least forty (40) different structural systems and construction methods using prefabricated concrete elements. There are about twenty (20) different companies building with prefabricated wood systems in the contemporary Swedish context. Sustainability concerns and resource depletion is driving this material shift from concrete to wood. What advantages of wood systems are there, and what parallels with concrete systems can be discerned? Will regulation, financing, knowledge, industrial capacity, and competence be built in the same way as 75 years ago? What lessons are to be learned from the last great era of systems building in Sweden?
Construction of Folkhem’s Cederhusen in Hagastaden Stockholm 2021. HSB’s housing in Östberga Stockholm 1958.
Courses: A42SEH, A52SEH