80. AITC: Limitlessness and Posthuman Questioning with Nikolaus Hirsch

Original Drawing by Tori Haynes

“To me, architecture is a practice that has a lot to do with curiosity and enjoying the situation of a white piece of paper where there’s nothing there […]”

The Architecture in the Time of Coronavirus miniseries continues this week with Frankfurt-based educator, theorist, and architect Nikolaus Hirsch. Host Vikram Prakash and Nikolaus Hirsch speculate on the architecture school of the future, posthumanism as a framework for transdisciplinary practices, and question what architecture is and could be.

Timestamp Outline 

1:00    Introduction to Nikolaus Hirsch

4:00    “What drives you? What is architecture to you?”    VP

5:58    Philosophy of sustained questioning

6:30    “Architecture is as much about building something tangible as it is about building discourse around an idea.”    NH

8:30    “Even when architects want to expand the field of architecture, we see the discipline and practice itself shrinking…”    NH

10:13    2038, Nikolaus Hirsch’s project for the Venice Biennale 2021, “How will we live together?”

12:30    “It is too easy to reduce [Chandigarh and other cities] down to their aesthetic value...it is more than that...it is a map of urban texture, a bureaucratic site…”    NH

19:20    What are the legal frameworks of building?    NH

26:00    Bruno Latour, French theorist, Philosopher, writer.

28:15    “How do you share the space of this planet with other actors?”    NH

32:00    Many Houses, Many Worlds, Vikram Prakash and Mark Jarzombek’s contribution to the Venice Biennale 2021

36:20    What is materiality? What is materialism? What is matter? What matters?

37:30    Karen Barad, Niels Bohr, Donna Haraway

38:50    X-Ray Architecture, Beatriz Colomina

39:30    Brunelleschi’s Dome