BERG Research seminar
Raymond Quek is Head of Architecture at Nottingham Trent University. His book Fiction • Image • Tone: Metropolis and Architecture Witnessed (Routledge) is due for release in 2011. He is co-editor of Nationalism & Architecture (Ashgate, forthcoming, 2012), and is working on Architecture Re-inscribed: Encountering Modern Architecture.
”Trichinella Spiralis and the Black Madonna
Raymond Quek
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Venue: University of Derby, Faculty of Art, Design & Technology
School of Technology, Markeaton Street, Room MS014
How do we speak of architecture?
In the world of commercial production in the 21 century, a building is predicted before it is brought into existence. Modern buildings are pre-dicted, viz. (etymologically) existence is anticipated pre- speech. Architecture differs from mere building, and has an ontological condition that is brought into originary being through design. Architecture has con-ditions, viz. (etymologically) existence is simultaneous with-speech.
This condition makes the idea of re-search in architecture preposterous, as what does not yet exist, not yet spoken, cannot be searched for. What then is architectural research, can it exist and if so, then what is its purpose? This seminar questions the nature of research & knowledge in architecture and traces a trajectory of contemplation, investigation, gestation, concretisation and disemmination. Presenting methodologies, reviewing the growth of projects and questions, developing teaching and strategies of his work and the work of others in analysis, Quek offers an insight into dealings with Architecture's ontological and epistemological conditions.
