Output details

Mobilizing Dissent, The Possible Architecture of the Governed 'Citizenship'

This research was initiated by the invitation to present a chapter on citizenship in The SAGE Handbook of Architectural Theory for which I recorded, analysed and theorized gestures of dissidence in the field of architecture. While the link between architecture and political power might be obvious and already well researched in its various implementations, this research is significant as it adopts the political concept of dissidence to ask whether architects can resist the very powers that control the conditions necessary for construction. It investigated how architects appear to be entrapped, not in symmetrical power relations, but in a complex force-field in which political, commercial, financial, military, ideological and cultural agents are bustling against each other.

The research evolved through case studies of architects in different countries and political regimes, but focused on the former GDR and communist Eastern Europe where the concept of dissidence helped to qualify creative work under totalitarian regimes, which in previous historiographies could only be described as ‘repressed’ or ‘inefficient’. Personal portraits showed architects working in a spectrum of possibilities, ranging from subversive gestures and endeavours aimed to reform the profession, to more introverted architectural gestures of refusing to participate in state projects, to outspoken radical gestures that resulted even in the imprisonment of architects.

In that context I curated a conference series in Vilnius that presented selected architects practices. I participated in the research symposia 'Architectures of late Socialism and Postmodernism' which were initiated by MIT School of Architecture (organiser Prof. Anna Miljacki). I edited the Journal 'Architecture and Culture' with 11 contributors and my editorial essay (Berg, 2013).

I presented a number of conference papers (2009 AHRA, 2012 EAHN, Courtauld Institute, RCA, Royal Academy), wrote peer reviewed journal articles (Routledge, Yale University), lectured internationally and presented an exhibition on the possibilities of creative work in imprisonment (www.celltexts.org).