 ANYmore Conference June, 23-25 1999 Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine Auditorium Palais de Chaillot, Paris (The debates will be in french and in english, with simultaneous translation)
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PRELIMINARY PROGRAM At the cusp of the new millennium, at the end of a calibrated period of time, it seems necessary to make certain queries, all of which can be posed with the question: Anymore? Foremost among them concerns the last two hundred years, a period of self-conscious time known as modernism. Can we assume that just because of a millennial fervor that a calendar change also signals an end or a time of end? What is there anymore? Wednesday, June 23, 1999 1. Paris Prologue: Emerging French Architecture Out of marginal experimentation in the 1970s and of an extraordinary surge in public commissions from 1981 to the mid 1990s, a diverse and contradictory production characterizes French architecture. Public funding has by no means led to a "state" architecture but to investigative, critical designs that challenge typology, context, and technology. Several of the most stimulating teams operating at scales ranging from single-family housing - a program deserted by architecture - to major cultural programs will discuss their problematic. Invited participants : Labfac (Finn Geipel/ Nicolas Michelin), Florence Lipsky/Pascale Rollet, Anne Lacaton/Jean-Philippe Vassal, Brendan Mac Farlane/Dominique Jakob, …… ; Moderator to be named 2. Anymore Theory or History? Theoretical investigation has become part of the practice of architecture. Not always escaping schematicism or innocence, the assimilation of philosophy and the social sciences has changed architects' perception of their discipline. A certain rift between North America and Europe, France in particular, can be perceived, however. Where American architects have been able to draw from their knowledge of theory a certain conceptual strength, the denigration of vision, a dominant mode of conceptualization practiced by French intellectuals, has found a symmetrical twin in the denigration of theory by architects. How is it possible today to construct autonomous theoretical objects, or will they always be constrained by history? Will designed or built objects continue to address theoretical interrogations? Invited Participants: Hubert Damisch, Ignasi de Solà-Morales, Denis Hollier, Bernard Tschumi, Patrick Berger ; Moderator : Jean-Louis Cohen Thursday, June 24, 1999 3. Anymore Context? The scale of cities today - their density, their breadth, their economies - and decades of unplanned growth have wreaked havoc with architecture's traditional notions of context, and the virtual community of the Internet suggests that regard for place is no longer necessary. What constitutes context in the image-saturated age of the sound bite? If the generic has become a new vernacular, how can architecture find its audience? Invited Participants: Arata Isozaki/Akira Asada, Rem Koolhaas, Saskia Sassen, Kazuyo Sejima, Bruno Fortier ; Moderator : Phyllis Lambert 4. Anymore Architecture? In today's system of global capital, is everything destined to become generic systems of infrastructure or can new forms of specificity emerge? Can architecture sustain any autonomy in its forms and content or will it be subsumed within social, economic, and political practices? Invited Participants: Peter Eisenman, Jean Nouvel (to be confirmed), Enric Miralles, Rosalind Krauss, Lars Spuybroek ; Moderator : Frédéric Migayrou Friday, June 25, 1999 5. Anymore Technology? Architectural imagination is stimulated by new technology, on the one hand through a practical exchange of systems and processes with other fields and, on the other, as a participant in the generation of the look of high technology. These are typically taken to be separate practices - one more material and "real," the other, all style. Architecture seems to be increasingly merging the operational and aesthetic activities of technology. How do architectural research and production inform technology and the culture of "hi-tech?" What effects might this process have on architectural conventions such as parti and plan? Invited Participants: Greg Lynn, Marc Mimram, Bernard Cache, Cecil Balmond (or Yannis Tsiomis), Alain Fleischer, Paul Virilio ; Moderator : Cynthia Davidson 6. Anymore Mores? Through the 20th century architecture has both reacted and capitulated as the loci of power proliferate and disperse against a background of information economies and accelerating corporatization. How might architecture position itself to serve not only clients but patrons in a larger sense, from local communities to global ones? How can architecture's relationship with collective purpose and social action navigate trends toward nationalist protectionism and cultural hegemony? Invited Participants: Christian de Portzamparc, Kurt Forster, Fredric Jameson, Elizabeth Grosz, Franco Purini ; Moderator : Kristin Feireiss Information Anymore-Paris: Institut Français d'Architecture, 6 rue de Tournon 75006 Paris - France fax: 33 - (01) 46 33 02 11 anymore-paris@ifa-chaillot.asso.fr http://www.anycorp.com/
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