Poster | Video coming soon

The contribution of architecture to the contemporary city is unclear. Even the master plan is contentious. In education we debate whether it is possible to set out grand visions or whether it is more appropriate to suggest the possibility of small scale incremental change. In practice the architect has been encouraged to understand his or her role as the ‘repairer’ of cities following the ‘disruption’ of modernisation and deindustrialisation. Is it possible to re-imagine architecture outside of these formal and cultural conventions? In discussion with Penny Lewis, Aureli will explore the relationship between architecture and the city.

Pier Vittorio Aureli is an architect and educator. His projects, research, writings and teaching focus on the relationship between architectural form, political theory, and urban history. He teaches at the Architectural Association and has taught at Columbia University, the Barcelona Institute of Architecture, and Delft University of Technology. Together with Martino Tattara, Aureli is the co-founder of DOGMA, an office focused on the project of the city. Website

Penny Lewis is a lecturer in architectural theory and history at the Scott Sutherland School of Architecture. Previously she was editor of Prospect, the Scottish architecture magazine from 2003-2008. She writes for a variety of publications on a range of cultural issues and is currently writing the text for the Phaidon World Atlas covering Spain and Switzerland. She is the founder of the St.Peters Preservation Trust and in 2011 co-founded the AE Foundation. Website

Poster | Video

Christoph Gantenbein and Raphael Zuber will each present plans and photographs of buildings that have been important to them personally. Using their examples as a starting point the following discussion will examine the specific qualities of the chosen buildings, and buildings in general, through the shared lens of fundamental architectural principles, personal preferences and their own experience.

Raphael Zuber studied architecture until 2001 at ETH Zurich. In 2003 he opened his own practice in Chur. His first major building is the schoolhouse in Grono. His articles and works have been published in several journals including 2G, Quaderns and Werk Bauen und Wohnen. He taught as a guest lecturer at the Bern University of Applied Sciences in 2006 and as a guest professor at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio at the Università della Svizzera italiana in 2009. Website

Christoph Gantenbein established Christ & Gantenbein with Emanuel Christ in 1998. Together with their four associates and a team of 35 architects, they work on a wide range of projects: from private assignments, renovation of historic buildings to housing, office buildings and bridges as well as large scale masterplans. After many teaching assignments in Switzerland and abroad, Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein took up professorships at the ETH Zurich in 2010. Website

Poster | Video

Rolf Jenni, Tom Weiss and Jan Kinsbergen share the conviction, that architecture can be the frame within which alternative forms of life and visions for the society are revealed and debated. They push the boundaries of convention because they believe that it has always been radical disciplinary thinking that advances architectural production.

Rolf Jenni and Tom Weiss established Raumbureau in 2008. They studied architecture at the University of Applied Sciences in Biel (Prof. Ralph Thut) and urbanism at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam (Prof. Elia Zenghelis). They teach at the ETH Studio Basel and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. In their practice they explore the field of architecture and its relationship with the city and the territory by means of a common and rational architecture. Website

Jan Kinsbergen studied Architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, received his degree in Architecture in 1993 (Prof. Hans Kollhoff), worked for Steven Holl Architects in New York 1994-1999 and in 2000 established his own firm in New York and 2002 in Zurich. He has had teaching appointments at GSAPP Columbia University and ETH Zurich. His work has been nominated for several awards and has been exhibited and published internationally. Website

Poster | Video

Over the past four decades the Pompidou has been widely discussed. It is said to mark a shift in attitudes to urban design, to the idea of the art museum and the concept of flexible space. This discussion will focus on the question of technology and public attitudes to technology and how they have changed since 1971. Mike Davies and Kester Rattenbury will discuss the significance of the building.

Mike Davies has worked with Richard Rogers and the practice for over 37 years and has been involved with virtually all the projects it has undertaken. He worked on the Pompidou Centre, Paris in the 1970s and was project architect for the adjacent Institute for Research & Co-ordination in Acoustics & Music. In the UK he worked on Lloyd’s, and the Terminal 1 expansion at London’s Heathrow Airport. Mike’s expertise includes urban design, technology, research and development. Website

Kester Rattenbury is an architectural journalist, critic and writer. After training as an architect she became an architectural journalist, working first at Building Design, then freelance, writing regularly for the Architects Journal where she is now a consulting editor. She is Reader in Architecture at the University of Westminster and was principal investigator on the Archigram Archival Project. She co-produced Supercrit 3 on the Pompidou Centre in April 2005. Website

Poster | Video

Architect Neil Gillespie will explore the questions of doubt and certainty with the help of Professor of Philosophy John Haldane. Doubt, melancholy and the ‘North’ inform much of Gillespies practice and has found these questions to be both provocative in his design work, his teaching and collaborations with artists.

Neil Gillespie is in the vanguard of a new Scottish architecture intent on bringing vitality to its designs – while at the same time adding an international dimension to Scottish architecture. The work of Reiach and Hall, has a diversity of role and function atypical of most contemporary practices. As Design Director, Gillespie carefully emphasises the conditions for dialogue and reconstructs, layer by layer, a visual and formal resolution that avoids the artificial. Website

John Haldane is a leading Scottish philosopher, commentator and broadcaster. He was appointed to the University of St Andrews in 1983 where since 1994 he has held the title of Professor in Philosophy. From 2002 to the present he has been Director of the University Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs. Haldane is a patron of the arts who has collected for over three decades and has written a number of respected texts on contemporary art practice. Website