New and Old Alterities

Advisor: Joseph Godlewski

Things are not normal. They never were, though history provides countless examples of people understanding themselves through a contrast to a presumed “other”. The other is understood as irrational, backwards, savage, and outside of the norm. Otherness is strange. Otherness is dangerous and a threat to the established order. The act of othering establishes normative practices and essentializes identities to culturally defined groups. Architecture has a long history of preserving and codifying the established order, despite claims of doing the opposite. In the face of current and impending catastrophes, architecture will need to be radically reimagined. Embracing alterity and the threat it poses to business-as-usual is therefore an existential necessity. We sense that those imagining the future will need to be much more diverse and inclusive and invite politically engaged projects that explore that possibility. This advisory group will speculate on the potentials of alterity to challenge conventional representation and built environments.

wednesday, may 3, 9:30 am - 2 pm, rooms 101, 401 & smith hall

Internal Critics: Wu, Eversole, Park, Abu-Hamdi