Living and Dying with Myths

Andrea Goh

Supervisors: Marina Lathouri, Alexandra Vougia

The ground has always been part of Singapore’s political discourse. The ground plane is for the state, a resource to be maximised, the result is a creation of land policies, housing policies and burial policies to control and manage land use.  Because of this, the ground manifests itself in the system of the juridical and although there is intention to view the ground as an asset or stake, it sometimes fails.  The thesis will graft a link between the complex condition of Singapore’s land scarcity and its construction of a national identity and myths (Anderson & Barthes).  The thesis starts off by understanding the history of the ground and explains how these housing and burial policies have not only been used as a pragmatic solution but is also a reflection of the state’s power and authority over the ground.  The thesis is then discussed as myths – the myth of socio-economic equality, the myth of racial equality and the myth of progress. As Singapore is made up of different social groups, myths of equality are critical to create an imagined community (Anderson) of people who do not share the same kinship.  Myths which are perpetuated by policies, demonstrate how rule creates the form of life by deciding on the norms of how individuals and families should function (Agamben).  The thesis examines all scales of the environment of the living – housing policies, urban planning of neighbourhoods, architecture and the plan of the public housing flat, to the spaces created for the dead – burial policies, architecture of spaces for burial rituals and designs of cemeteries and columbarium facilities.  At each time, the thesis will examine how policies and the design of spaces have led to a larger myth and also when these attempts have failed or resulted in complications due to some form of adaptation or resistance.  Lastly, the myth of progress questions the meanings of happiness and family. The social policies that most significantly leveraged on the national public housing program are family policies.  By capitalising on the family as the last “natural” social institution that has emotional ties, obligation and rootedness to a geographical place, the chapter will look at how the concepts of family is constructed by the state and how through policy and design, the home of the family presents itself as asset and incentive to protect the space of the domestic and national.  The design of the housing system (of the living and the dead) through to the design of spaces, from the scale of the neighbourhood or facility to the scale of the single dwelling unit or columbarium niche, has reinforced the power of these myths – that a majority of Singaporeans are part of middle-class society who are presented with similar opportunities and aspire for the same ideals of happiness and family. The thesis hopes to question to what extent the conditions of the ground has led to the creation of these myths and how it has altered the way of life for its citizens.

Image: The public housing flats houses more than 80% of Singaporeans and although the prefabricated standardised flats may appear very similar and homogenous in design, the spaces inside and immediately outside each dwelling unit are adapted to each family.  The image of the corridor is just a glimpse of how inhabitants adapt spaces to the way of life of their family.

Biography: Andrea graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Masters of Architecture in 2010 and was involved in policy creation and urban planning with the Urban Redevelopment Authority in Singapore from 2011 to 2015.  In 2016, she was awarded a Masters of Arts in History and Critical Thinking in Architecture from the Architectural Association – where she is now pursuing her PhD.  Her research interests include the realm of the domestic and the state of the home and she also has a peculiar curiosity for spaces of the dead.

MA HCT & PhD Debates: History ‘in-translation’

Marina Lathouri and Guest Speakers

Debate 3

The Female Body Politic: Re-modelling The Book of the City of Ladies

Guest speaker: Penelope Haralambidou

Thursday 13 February | 4:00pm | 32 Bedford Square (First Floor Back)

Photograph: Andy Keate

PhD Lunchtime Talk: Matilde Cassani

Celebration Days

The spatial implications of cultural manifestations in the contemporary western urban context

Friday 3 May 2019, 1:00-2:15pm, 33 FFF

Since Baroque times a celebration has been an event that can be repeated more than once over time with the same rules but which starts in the same way and always ends in different ways. A party can be a moment of happiness but also of collective sadness. The place is the centre of the city, where the celebration reproduces the macrocosm in a microcosm. The event involves arts and crafts, religion and superstition, history and myth; individuals and communities, sometimes becoming a global fact. There are numerous opportunities for having a celebration. It can be a local or international event and may even be run by another country. A party reflects or foreshadows real events whether they be political or cultural, sacred or profane. During the event, the artisans under the guidance of its director produce artifacts that will be the protagonists of the show. Often the celebration closes with fireworks before everything finishes and the glory comes to an end. The ephemeral frequently also becomes a form of experimentation for a more lasting design and anticipates a more in-depth change. Celebration “designers” were the most important architects of the time during the Baroque period and their events were also reproduced in paintings, described in books and remembered for generations. In one way it may be said that a celebration is an architectural project in all respects, from a single element to its totality where the architect is not only the designer but also the director and the communicator. Ephemeral architecture becomes a reason for transforming a city, where the stage is the city itself and the mass of people are an integral part of the show. The lecture will focus on celebratory events and their “anticipatory” agents of the changes of the city and the roles of its architect.

 

Matilde Cassani moves on the border between architecture, installation and event design. Her practice deals with the spatial implications of cultural pluralism in the contemporary Western city. Her works have been showcased in many cultural institutions, art galleries and were published in several magazines such as Architectural Review, Domus, Abitare, Flash art, Arkitecktur, Arqa. She has been a resident fellow at “Akademie Schloss Solitude” in Stuttgart and at the “Headlands Center for the Arts” in San Francisco. Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York hosted her solo exhibition “Sacred Spaces in Profane Buildings” in September 2011. She designed the National Pavilion of The Kingdom of Bahrain at the XIII Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012 and she was part of the XIV Venice Architecture Biennale with the piece “A celebration day”, recently acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She was recently involved in the Chicago Architecture triennale, Oslo Triennale and Manifesta12. She currently teaches at Politecnico di Milano, at Domus Academy and at the Architectural Association in London working with Unit 11.

‘What is Contemporary?’ – Conjuring with Ghosts (Geists): A Dialectical Fairy Tale

History as Narrative of the Present

(PhD seminar with Marina Lathouri and guest speaker Joan Ockman)

Following on the seminar ‘What is Historical?’ in Term 1, discussions with guest speakers will take place this term. Continuing and expanding on the previous sessions, the theme is ‘What is Contemporary?’.

For the first session on Thursday at 4:30pm in 37 FFF we are delighted to be joined by Joan Ockman who will talk about ‘History as Narrative of the Present‘.

 

Readings:

Reyner Banham, “Introduction—The Machine Age,” from Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (orig. 1960), 9–12

Manfredo Tafuri, “Introduction: The Historical ‘Project,’” from The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s (orig. 1980), 1–21

Manfredo Tafuri, Preface to Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects (orig. 1992), xxvii–xxix

 

Supplementary:

Fredric Jameson, “Preface: Regressions of the Current Age” and “Part I: Four Maxims of Modernity” (first three sections), from A Singular Modernity: Essay on the Ontology of the Present (2012), 1–41

 

AHRA PhD Student Symposium

The 2019 AHRA PhD Student Symposium will take place this year 24-25 April at the University of Manchester, UK.

According to the event’s website, the ‘AHRA Research Student Symposium 2019 takes as its starting point a broad and prolonged transition occurring in architectural research during the past decade. New and interdisciplinary approaches emerge as a result of our world’s socio-political and techno-ecological transformations towards relational, processual “architectural research.” These changes move away from descriptions and interpretations of a static formal “Architecture” focused on particular buildings and architects.’

Please visit the symposium webpages for more details: https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/ahra/

The submissions deadline is 28 January 2019.

AA PhD alumni commended in the RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2018

In Dec 2018, AA PhD Alumni Dr. Jingru (Cyan) Cheng received a commendation from the RIBA President’s Awards for Research 2018 with her work titled ‘Care and Rebellion: The Dissolved Household in Contemporary Rural China’. This work is part of her PhD by Design thesis ’Territory, Settlement, Household: A Project of Rural China’ supervised by Pier Vittorio Aureli and Sam Jacoby at the AA.

Cyan started her PhD research on rural China from the perspective of an architect. However, in her words, ‘towards the end, I have felt more and more strongly about what I find out through research – rurality as an elastic form of association – from the perspective of being Chinese.’

She identifies ‘the associational relationships [which] manifest themselves through minor details and insignificant moments in the practice of everyday life – through how people act, speak and do their chores’ – as elastic, confessing that, methodologically speaking, this has also made her increasingly drawn to the intersection between architecture and anthropology as well as to design ethnography.

Cyan argues that derived ‘from the deeply embedded elasticity, the dissolved household in contemporary rural China anticipates some of the global discussions around alternative forms of social relationships beyond the family norm, especially in relation to the network of care, the intergenerational living and the ageing society. In this sense, rural China is at the forefront of global challenges.’

More information can be found at: https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/riba-presidents-awards-for-research/2018/care-and-rebellion-the-dissolved-household-in-contemporary-rural-china.

Image Caption: The Yard in Liu Brothers’ Family House, Shigushan Village, Wuhan, China, 2016 © Jingru (Cyan) Cheng

What is Historical?

PhD Seminar organized by Marina Lathouri and Will Orr | Term 1

 

This PhD seminar series introduces four key problematics from the philosophy of history and the theory of historiography. A question not simply of the “past” but of the present and the future, by asking “what is historical?” we hope to open a discussion on the critical and eminently practical relevance of history for contemporary action—whether in the critical polemic, historical research, or design project.

Each session performs a close reading of paired texts, a specific body of historical writing, to establish a conceptual foundation for thinking about history, how history is being produced, what is written, what is said and how it can be taught.

The seminar also looks ahead to a series of debates and discussions with visiting speakers taking place in Term 2 on the related question: “What is Contemporary?”

 

Seminar I       History and Modernity

Nov 15 | 4pm – 6pm

Immanuel Kant: “An answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” (1784)

Michel Foucault: “What is Enlightenment?”

In: The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, pp.32-50, 1984

Supplementary readings:

Peter Osborne, Chapter 1: “Modernity, a Different Time” in The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde (1995), pp.1-29

 

Seminar II      History as Agency

Nov 22 | 4pm – 6pm

W. F. Hegel: Introduction to the Lectures of the Philosophy of History (1837)

Karl Marx: “Theses on Feuerbach” (1845)

Supplementary readings:

Theodore W. Adorno, Lectures 3 and 4 in An Introduction to Dialectics (1958), pp.15-36

Michael Löwy, “A Historical Materialism with Romantic Splinters: Walter Benjamin and Karl Marx” in Jernej Habjan and Jessica Whyte eds., (Mis)readings of Marx in Continental Philosophy (2014), pp.19-33

 

Seminar III    History as Theory

Nov 29 | 4pm – 6pm

Manfredo Tafuri: Introduction to Theories and History (1968)

Reinhardt Koselleck: “On the Need for Theory in the Discipline of History”

In: The Practice of Conceptual History: Timing History, Spacing Concepts, pp.1-19, 2002

Supplementary readings:

Judith Butler, “Critique, Dissent, Disciplinarity” in Katrin de Boer and Ruth Sonderegger eds., Conceptions of Critique in Modern and Contemporary Philosophy (2012), pp.10-29

Tomas Llorens, “On Making History” in Joan Ockamn, Deborah Berke, and Mary Mcleod eds., Architecture Criticism Ideology (1985), pp.24-8

 

Seminar IV    History and the Contemporary

Dec 6 | 4pm – 6pm

Giorgio Agamben: “What is the Contemporary?” (2008)

Friedrich Nietzsche: Untimely Meditations (1876)

Supplementary readings:

Terry
 Smith, “Introduction:
 The
 Contemporaneity 
Question,”
 in 
Terry
Smith,
 Okwui
 Enwezor 
and
 Nancy
 Condee
eds.,
Antinomies
 of
 Art
 and
 Culture:
 Modernity,
 Postmodernity,
 Contemporaneity
 (2008)

Jean-Luc Nancy, “Art Today,” lecture Academia di Brera, Milan, 2006. In: Journal of Visual Culture, vol.9, no.1 (April 2010), pp.91-9

Crosswise – 4 Conversations

EVENT 3
FRIDAY 1st of JUNE
 
 
10.00-10.15
Introduction to the event by Alvaro
10.15 – 11.50 
Dissolving Boundaries
Tatjana Crossley, Elena Palacios, Sofia Krimizi
 
The overarching theme of this panel is ‘boundaries’, looking at this through the lens of the psychological,
the physical and the representational. Tatjana Crossley will be discussing the boundary of the body image,
looking largely at the psychological aspect of body image formation and evolution (as it relates to the
subjective and sensory experience of space and virtual space). Elena Palacios will be considering the space of
the artist studio as an inhabited boundary that exists between and merges the space of the home and the
public. And Sofia Krimizi will be examining the boundaries imposed by and generated through education
in the context of the architecture school, specifically looking into the departure from the building as a
boundary that separates the act of learning from the objects that architects are learning from.
11.50 – 13.20 
Spaces of Hybridity
Kanyaphorn Kaewprasert, Kornkamon Kaewprasert, and Damnoen Techamai
This panel will discuss the ideas of hybridity in two phenomena. Damnoen Techamai will be
using the term to explain wedding ceremonies in the current culture condition of Thailand through
wedding gowns. The productions of objects and services seem to refer to traditions in Thailand but are
basically an invented tradition. Secondly, the notion of hybridity will be discussed in traditional questions
in social science of the relationship between things which are both natural and cultural. Kornkamon
Kaewprasert will be discussing the idea of wood symbolising wood by giving the distinction of the object,
tree , and the substance, wood , which is overlaid by the distinction of culture and nature. Kanyaphorn
Kaewprasert will be examining the forest, a paradoxical object, by laying out its terms from natural to
cultural understandings, in particular, a forest in its impermeable, pure, stage to the forest in fairytales.
13.20 – 14.30 lunch
14.30 – 15.45 
Imaginary Ideals
Andrea Goh and Naina Gupta
 
The panel will discuss two different examples of utopian ideas. Both discussions will show the
complications where imaginary narratives affect the spatial conditions and architectural practices, effecting
the very forms of life of its people. The first presentation discusses the policies on exhumations and burials
in Singapore and reflects on the distinct spatial technologies the Singaporean state has utilised to tackle the
issues of land scarcity while at the same time, trying to create a sense of rootedness in its citizens. The
second presentation, focusing on the international zone in The Hague, argues that the deliberate projection
of neutrality – understood by its ease of integration in to the everyday, its pure functional rhetoric and lack
of any overt representation of power – is the inevitable architectural language of international
organisations, is rooted in modernism and is closely aligned with its inherent paradoxical political stance.
15.50 – 18.00 
The Politics of Planning: Conditions, Contradictions, Critiques
Ricardo Ruivo, Will Orr, Eleni Axioti, Samaneh Moafi
 
The panel will discuss contemporary questions surrounding the social and political character of
architectural and urban planning. In particular, attention will be paid to the historical connection between
planning, social democracy, and the welfare state, which today takes on a particular significance. The panel
will address contemporary critical perceptions of historical instances of planning, with focus on the
limitations of those critiques. The speakers will suggest different approaches to the notion of planning – a
notion which tends to condense a number of ambiguous institutional and political associations within
architectural discourse.
Respondents:
Constance Lau, Doreen Bernath, Jon Goodbun, Maria S. Giudici, Teresa Stoppani, Mark Campbell (tbc), Mark
Cousins, Mark Morris (tbc), Melissa Moore
* Events organized by Naina Gupta and Alvaro Velasco Perez; posters designed and produced by Kanyaphorn Kaewprasert, Kornkamon Kaewprasert

Crosswise – PhD Symposium

EVENT 1
WEDNESDAY 30th OF MAY 
Double Crossing 
“This Thing Called Theory
Open Seminar Series
 
14:00 – 18:00
At the The Barrel Vault in The AA
Organised by  AA PhD Programme & Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA)
This Thing Called Theory
Stemming from the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) 2015 conference, the open seminar
series ‘This Thing Called Theory’ continues to explore the status of theory in architecture, and proposes theory as a
form of architectural practice that opposes the instrumentalization of its use.
The first open seminar ‘Architecture and Its Theories’ (AA 2017) looked at different ways of practicing theory in
architecture, through its histories (Marco De Michelis) and philosophies (Mark Cousins), as well as in curatorial
(Pippo Ciorra) and editorial (Diana Periton) practices. Issues of interpretation and betrayal in representation and
communication emerged.
Double Crossing
In this second open seminar ‘Double Crossing’, the question of fidelity is further examined, in particular in the
relation between architectural theory and practice. One important motif that emerged in previous debates is the
ability of theory to digress and transgress certain bounds of the field, insofar as to instigate disturbances that may
lead to deaths and births of particular forms of practice.
In this sense, theory in its most provocative form is to be not so much a faithful ally of practice, as that which has
the ability to love and to betray practice, for Architecture’s sake. Every act of insight, imagination and innovation
possible in architecture is a trace of such double-crossing, intentional deceit and treacherous exposure between
theory and practice. This is where what is said and not said, the visible and the hidden, the mark and its erasure,
constitute the relation of complicity behind movements of conservation and revolution that shaped what we now
know as architectural history.
Speakers
Doreen Bernath (AA & Leeds Beckett University)
Mark Cousins (AA)
Sergio Figueiredo (TU Eindhoven)
Ivonne Santoyo Orozco(Iowa State University)
Douglas Spencer (AA & University of Westminster)
Teresa Stoppani (AHRA)
Respondents
Andrea Dutto (Politecnico di Torino)
Will Orr (AA PhD programme)
PROGRAMME
14:00 – 14:15
Teresa Stoppani, Sergio Figueiredo, Doreen Bernath – Introduction
14:15 – 15:00
Mark Cousins – On Betrayal
Ivonne Santoyo Orozco – Liquid
Doreen Bernath – Introjection
15:00 – 15:45
Questions and Conversation
Speakers with Andrea Dutto, Will Orr, Teresa Stoppani and audience
15:45 – 16:00
Coffee Break
16:00 – 16:45
Douglas Spencer – Withdrawn
Sergio Figueiredo – Towards Big Data
Teresa Stoppani – Erasure
16:45 – 17:30
Questions and Conversation
Speakers with Andrea Dutto, Will Orr, Doreen Bernath and
audience
17:30 – 18:00
Drinks
———————————————————————————
EVENT 2
THURSDAY 31st of MAY
Completed PhD Presentations
33FFB (First Floor Back)
14:00
Ricardo Ruivo Pereira
Architecture and Counter-revolution: The Ideology of the Historiography of the Soviet Avant-garde
Supervisors: Mark Cousins, Dr Pier Vittorio Aureli
The thesis produces a history of the Western historiography of Soviet architecture, looking at its trends and the evolution of its narratives. It focuses on the development of historiographical categories and their transformations, as an exercise of what Reinhart Koselleck calls conceptual history, framed as a Marxist critique of ideology. It frames a persistent link to the present from the Soviet “avant-garde” as an ideological projection of meanings the Western historiography of Soviet architecture produces over its own geo-political reality, where “the avant-garde” as a meta-category is itself constructed of legitimation of Western presents
 
Arturo Revilla 
Plastic. The use of everyday materials as a design tool for the understanding of contemporary urbanization.
Supervisors: Dr Marina Lathouri
Plastic is in everything we touch and see drastically affecting our day to day. This  material form has extended its influence beyond our direct experience in to areas such as infrastructure, global commerce and communication, playing a central role in the complexity of our contemporary material culture. This thesis examines the impact that the everyday use of materials such as plastic has had in the configuration of the physical environment to explore the relationships and synergies between urbanization processes and architectural design.
 
Nihal Al Sabbagh
Urban Design and Outdoor Thermal Comfort
Supervisors: Dr Simos Yannas, Dr Paula Cadima
The study aims to improve walkability, prolonging the distances that can be travelled by pedestrians at different times of the year. Design strategies were investigated through field studies and computational simulation with case studies for the urban communities of Greens and Jumeirah Lakes Towers in Dubai.
 
———————————————————————————
EVENT 3
FRIDAY 1st of JUNE
 
Crosswise: 4 Conversations
 
10.00-10.15
Introduction to the event by Alvaro
10.15 – 11.50 
Dissolving Boundaries
Tatjana Crossley, Elena Palacios, Sofia Krimizi
 
The overarching theme of this panel is ‘boundaries’, looking at this through the lens of the psychological,
the physical and the representational. Tatjana Crossley will be discussing the boundary of the body image,
looking largely at the psychological aspect of body image formation and evolution (as it relates to the
subjective and sensory experience of space and virtual space). Elena Palacios will be considering the space of
the artist studio as an inhabited boundary that exists between and merges the space of the home and the
public. And Sofia Krimizi will be examining the boundaries imposed by and generated through education
in the context of the architecture school, specifically looking into the departure from the building as a
boundary that separates the act of learning from the objects that architects are learning from.
11.50 – 13.20 
Spaces of Hybridity
Kanyaphorn Kaewprasert, Kornkamon Kaewprasert, and Damnoen Techamai
This panel will discuss the ideas of hybridity in two phenomena. Damnoen Techamai will be
using the term to explain wedding ceremonies in the current culture condition of Thailand through
wedding gowns. The productions of objects and services seem to refer to traditions in Thailand but are
basically an invented tradition. Secondly, the notion of hybridity will be discussed in traditional questions
in social science of the relationship between things which are both natural and cultural. Kornkamon
Kaewprasert will be discussing the idea of wood symbolising wood by giving the distinction of the object,
tree , and the substance, wood , which is overlaid by the distinction of culture and nature. Kanyaphorn
Kaewprasert will be examining the forest, a paradoxical object, by laying out its terms from natural to
cultural understandings, in particular, a forest in its impermeable, pure, stage to the forest in fairytales.
13.20 – 14.30 lunch
14.30 – 15.45 
Imaginary Ideals
Andrea Goh and Naina Gupta
 
The panel will discuss two different examples of utopian ideas. Both discussions will show the
complications where imaginary narratives affect the spatial conditions and architectural practices, effecting
the very forms of life of its people. The first presentation discusses the policies on exhumations and burials
in Singapore and reflects on the distinct spatial technologies the Singaporean state has utilised to tackle the
issues of land scarcity while at the same time, trying to create a sense of rootedness in its citizens. The
second presentation, focusing on the international zone in The Hague, argues that the deliberate projection
of neutrality – understood by its ease of integration in to the everyday, its pure functional rhetoric and lack
of any overt representation of power – is the inevitable architectural language of international
organisations, is rooted in modernism and is closely aligned with its inherent paradoxical political stance.
15.50 – 18.00 
The Politics of Planning: Conditions, Contradictions, Critiques
Ricardo Ruivo, Will Orr, Eleni Axioti, Samaneh Moafi
 
The panel will discuss contemporary questions surrounding the social and political character of
architectural and urban planning. In particular, attention will be paid to the historical connection between
planning, social democracy, and the welfare state, which today takes on a particular significance. The panel
will address contemporary critical perceptions of historical instances of planning, with focus on the
limitations of those critiques. The speakers will suggest different approaches to the notion of planning – a
notion which tends to condense a number of ambiguous institutional and political associations within
architectural discourse.
Respondents:
Constance Lau, Doreen Bernath, Jon Goodbun, Maria S. Giudici, Teresa Stoppani, Mark Campbell (tbc), Mark
Cousins, Mark Morris (tbc), Melissa Moore
* Events organized by Naina Gupta and Alvaro Velasco Perez; posters designed and produced by Kanyaphorn Kaewprasert, Kornkamon Kaewprasert

Elena Palacios Carral

Elena graduated from Diploma at The Architectural Association School of Architecture in 2012. In 2015 she completed The MA in History and Critical Thinking at the same school where she is currently enrolled as a PhD Candidate. She has worked as an Architectural Designer in Mexico City and the UK, and as an architectural researcher at Forensic Architecture. Elena has been a visiting critic at various UK Universities, taught first-year design studio at The University of Hertfordshire in 2017-2018 and currently, she is an Associate Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University where she is co-leading DS7 on the MArchD course since 2018.
 
 
 
 
Impression of Hubert Robert’s studio at the Louvre based on one of his paintings. Drawing by Elena Palacios, 2019