Study Architecture 
ProPEL 
Author(s): Paul Holmquist
Is there an essentially architectural vocation and capacity implicit within the plethora of contemporary practices by which we can judge them, and account for their significance? If so, what constitutes this essentiality? How can we understand it, and how can we teach it? Through a discussion of the research undertaken in an architectural theory course taught over a number of years at several institutions, I argue that an essentially architectural dimension can be found in the relation between fabrication and the political nature of the public realm as it inheres in public space. Drawing upon Hannah Arendt’s notion of the public realm as the sphere of common concern that is actualized through acting and speaking, I propose that what is essential to architecture is the capacity to fabricate the concrete, experiential conditions for the actionability of the public realm. I will discuss the seminar framework and student research projects in order to show how this essentially architectural vocation can, in fact, be most clearly discerned in practices at the extreme edges of the field, and how furthering the plurality of practices is vital to architecture’s development and self-definition as a discipline.
https://doi.org/10.35483/ACSA.AM.107.50
Volume Editors
Amy Kulper, Grace La & Jeremy Ficca
ISBN
978-1-944214-21-0
