Spatial Activism: Profiling a New Wave of European Architecture Collectives and Their Spatial Manifestos

2017-02-01T12:05:00-05:00

While there exists an extensive volume of politically engaged architecture projects and countless architects who, particularly in their youth, practiced with explicit agendas, architecture offices have in the main been formed around a signature typology or aesthetic. Consider Zaha Hadid’s cultural icons, Christopher Wren’s churches or Santiago Calatrava’s sculptural engineering: such designers branded their careers upon a signature feature, their trademark image subsequently produced and reproduced in design journals. However, a contingent of young European architects have begun to challenge this custom to instead orient their practice around what might be referred to as the ‘political object’. These spatial activists operate from the sidelines as facilitators, utilising design not as an end in itself but as a means to pursue a specific objective.

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Spatial Activism: Profiling a New Wave of European Architecture Collectives and Their Spatial Manifestos