Design Studio 1 - Re-Inventing Europe - The Case of Sicily
Peter Volgger
“Architecture is a political act, by nature,” says Lebbeus Woods. His statement is more relevant than ever. Architecture is political; it must intervene politically. In times of great upheaval, architecture can create spaces for dialogue, giving people and collectives a form of representation. Architecture does not lag behind political discussions, but actively creates a political space by constantly redefining what change means. Today, the world is facing dramatic upheaval, and a new world order is rapidly taking shape. New ideas and perspectives are needed to enable us to respond appropriately and promptly to current challenges. Umberto Eco famously claimed that Europe's language is translation. But translation of what? And into what other language? Translation is Europe's confrontation with something else. What could that something else be? Europe is not a subject for unbridled political optimism, but rather a daring experiment, surrounded by hope and fear. Derrida called for Europe to be thought of from its margins, from its other end, a “Europe in the making.”
This Design Studio focuses on the Mediterranean region and aims to question a series of geographical and identity-related realities that extend far beyond the borders of this area. Three continents—Europe, Asia, and Africa—meet in the Mediterranean and influence each other. Today, North-South conflicts, enormous wealth disparities, demographic trends, the rise of authoritarian regimes, armed conflicts in the eastern Mediterranean, and significant refugee movements between North Africa, the Middle East, and Southern Europe play a major role. The Mediterranean is a hotspot of climate change, which acts as a multiplier of complex risks, especially for water and food supplies.
Further reading and summary at https://archtheo.eu/lehre/re-inventing-europe-the-case-of-sicily-entwerfen-em1-ws-2025-26
SE Gendermainstreaming in Architecture
Katerina Haller
EQUAL SPACE - Gender equitable strategies in the field of tension between equality and diversity
The course analyzes the interconnection of gender, race and class along key texts, architecture and artistic
interventions. What will and who builds city? What are regulations and exclusions – where are gaps? How
can equality be developed without negating diversity?
These issues will be reflected along the interdisciplinary gender studies and gender-friendly building will be
critically discussed.
Andreas Rumpfhuber
This year’s lecture on architecture theory I call "The History of Contemporary Architecture“. It will trace a genealogy of architecture’s practice that has radically shifted since the end of the Second World War in relation to modernism and its economic, technological and political framework.
The aim is to provide an analytical tool that will enable the students to navigate current architectural discourses and, in the best case, to develop their own position.
This means that the lecture focuses specifically on analysing significant projects and their embeddness in social discourses of the last 50 years. The symbolic starting point of the lecture is 8 February 1971, the day on which the data centre of the world's first fully electronic stock exchange of the „National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations“ (NASDAQ), opens in New York.
Shortly afterwards, on 15 August 1971, then US President Nixon declared the withdrawal from the Bretton Woods Agreement, which initially had made possible the post-war economic miracle and the social-liberal welfare state in the western industrial nations. From this moment onwards, money production became more and more virtual, the use of electronic technology intensified, and the political ideology commonly known as "neoliberalism" increasingly became the dominant thought pattern of our societies, and hence also the logic of architectural production. Hence, the themes, content and aesthetic practice have been and are shifting and can be traced and analyzed in significant projects.