forA on the Urban (Angewandte Biennale Session)

Launch of Issue #0 and Forum #1 on the Urban

Angewandte at La Biennale di Venezia 2021
Hosted by the Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts Vienna

On the occasion of the 17th International Architecture Biennale 2021 in Venice, the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna cordially invites you to the presentation of forA on the – a journal as process and artefact aiming for inclusive forms of knowledge production between academic traditions and emerging approaches. forA on the Urban examines the open, unfinished, multi-scaled, intercon- nected, complex and wild nature of urban manifestations, challenges and situations through an expanded notion of architecture.

Live Stream: via Youtube

forA on the Urban is a project made possible by the University of Applied Arts Vienna, conceptualized and produced by the Institute of Architecture (IoA), edited by Gerald Bast, Andrea Börner, Cristina Díaz Moreno, Efrén García Grinda, and Baerbel Mueller and supported by an international advisory board: Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Mario Carpo, Nerea Calvillo, Filip De Boeck, Keller Easterling, Teresa Galí-Izard, Mario Gandelsonas, Andrew Herscher, Sandi Hilal, Nikolaus Hirsch, Lesley Lokko, Elke Krasny, Sanford Kwinter, Mpho Matsipa, John McMorrough, Peter Mörtenböck, Helge Mooshammer, Alessandro Petti, Philippe Rekacewicz, Curtis Roth, Saskia Sassen, AbdouMaliq Simone, Ines Weizman and Liam Young.



Welcome:
Gerald Bast

Introduction by:
Andrea Börner, Christina Diaz Moreno, Efren Garcia Grinda, Baerbel Mueller

Forum #1 with:
Lesley Lokko, John McMorrough, Saskia Sassen, Liam Young

LESLEY LOKKO (African Futures Institute (AFI), Accra, Ghana)
trained as an architect at the Bartlett School of Architecture and holds a PhD in Architecture from the University of London. She is the founder and director of the African Futures Institute (AFI) in Accra, Ghana, an indepen- dent postgraduate school of architecture and public events platform. She was the founder and director of the Graduate School of Architecture, University of Johannesburg (2014–2019) and the Dean of Architecture at the Bernard & Anne Spitzer School of Architecture (2019–2020). She is the editor of White Papers, Black Marks: Architecture, Race, Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2000) and editor-in-chief of FOLIO: Journal of Contemporary African Architecture. In 2004, she made the successful transition from academic to novelist with the publication of her first novel, Sundowners (Orion, 2004) and has since followed with twelve further bestsellers, which have been translated into fifteen languages. She is a founding member of the UN-Habitat Council on Urban Initiatives, a member of the 17th International Jury of the Venice Architec- ture Biennale, and a trustee of the London-based Architecture Foundation.
 
JOHN MCMORROUGH (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, US)
is an architect. He writes about the relationship between culture and design methods, with a focus on architecture’s extended field (buildings, but also complementary media such as images, installations, and other structured narratives). He designs at the scale of building (sets) and situation (comedies) as a partner of studioAPT (Architecture Project Theory). His writing and design work has appeared in books and publications such as Perspecta, Log, Volume, Praxis, Threshold, MAS Context, and Flat Out. He has taught theory and design at the Yale School of Architecture, the Ohio State University, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, among other institutions. Currently, he is an associate professor at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.
 
SASKIA SASSEN (Columbia University, New York, US)
is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and former Chair of The Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University. Her books include Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (Harvard University Press, 2014); Cities in a World Economy (SAGE, 1994); Losing Control: Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization (Columbia University Press, 1996); The Schoff Memorial Lectures (Columbia University Press 1995); Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton University Press, 2006); A Sociology of Globalization (W.W. Norton, 2007); The Global City, (Princeton University Press, 1991); The Mobility of Labor and Capital (Cambridge University Press, 1988). Her books have been translated into over twenty languages and in 2018 she was selected as one of the top 100 women in the Sciences. She was awarded the Principe de Asturias Prize for the Social Sciences in 2013 , and the Geneva Picciotto Prize in 2020.
 
LIAM YOUNG (SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, US)
is a speculative architect and director who operates in the spaces between design, fiction and futures. He is cofounder of Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, an urban futures think tank, exploring the local and global implications of new technologies and Unknown Fields, a nomadic research studio that travels on expeditions to chronicle these emerging conditions as they occur on the ground. Described by the BBC as ‘the man designing our futures’, his visionary films and speculative world designs for the entertainment industry are both extraordinary images of tomorrow, and urgent examinations of the environmental questions facing us today. His fictional work is informed by his academic research. He has held guest professorships at Princeton University, MIT, and Cambridge and now runs the groundbreaking Masters in Fiction and Entertain- ment at SCI Arc in Los Angeles.

Live Stream: via Youtube

25 Sept 2021, 4pm
(free and open to the public)
La Biennale di Venezia, Biennale Sessions
Ca’ Giustinian, Sala delle Colonne San Marco 1364/A 30124 Venice
Event