Fall 2009

Coordinators: Rebecca Uchill and Ana Maria Leon

September 22, 6:30 pm, 3-133. "The Cool Look of Reasonable Consumption: "Lifestyle" in Cold War Czech Architectural Discourse" given by Ana Miljacki

One of the most famous events marking the cold war tension's capacity to infiltrate all aspects of life revolved around a washing machine. The image of Nixon and Khrushchev standing together at the American Exhibit in Moscow in 1957, observing a scene of suburban domestic life, allegorically summarizes the "peaceful race" that held the world in balance for four decades after the Yalta meeting of 1945. Although the juxtaposition of relative luxury to relative scarcity appropriately describes the most basic circumstances of life (and practicing architecture) on the opposing sides of the curtain, this juxtaposition has often obfuscated the importance that the concept of lifestyle held in the postwar discourse about the Second World War.

This talk will examine the status of the concept of lifestyle in the work of the Club for The Study of Consumption in Prague (1946-1948), and track related invocations of lifestyle in the Czech postwar architectural discourse.

Ana Miljacki is currently an Assistant Professor of Architecture at MIT.

October 6, 6:30 pm, 3-133."Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity and Geopolitics" given by Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen

Perhaps more than any other architect, Alvar Aalto's life and career have been tied to his home country, Finland. This lecture will elaborate upon our understanding of Aalto's "Finnishness" by placing him within the terrain of 20th century geopolitics, understood here as a combination of geographic and political factors influencing Aalto's career during the Finnish Civil War of 1918, spanned through two Finno-Russian wars that took place, respective in 1939-40 and 1941-44, and culminated at the beginning-of-an-end of the Cold War in the mid-1970s.

Considering all the turmoil, it comes as no surprise that various geographic narratives dominated his architecture, writings and reception. Yet, this talk will prove that "Finnish" was not the only attribute Aalto used to describe his architecture. Ideas about "Nordic," "Scandinavian," "Baltic," "international," "pan-European," "regional" and "universal" culture bear witness to the richness and scale of his geographic ambitions at different times.

Alvar Aalto: Architecture, Modernity and Geopolitics is based on Pelkonen's book of the same title, published by Yale University Press in Spring 2009.

Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen is an Associate Professor at Yale School of Architecture, where she teaches design, history and theory of architecture and directs the Masters of Environmental Design program.

November 10, 6:30 pm, 3-133. "Hybridity as Condition + Challenge: Beyond Project Zagreb" given by Eve Blau

The European Union is generating a new transnational political geography in Europe that raises a number of questions about the internal dynamics and role of cities in cross-border networks. Focusing on Zagreb - a city currently transitioning into the EU and with more than 150 years of experience of operating in conditions of instability and within transnational political structures - Blau examines how such conditions create opportunities for architecture, and generate new forms of practice and techniques for city making.

Eve Blau is Adjunct Professor of Architectural History and Director of the Master in Architecture Degree Programs at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

November 17, 6:30 pm, 3-133. "Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Age of Cultural Production" given by Nato Thompson

Nato Thompson is Chief Curator at the public art agency Creative Time, New York, where he has organized such projects as Paul Chan's monumental Waiting for Godot in the streets of New Orleans (2007), Democracy in America: The National Campaign (2008) in New York City's Park Avenue Armory, the roving cross-country discussion platform It is What it Is: Conversations about Iraq by artist Jeremy Deller, and PLOT09, which brought a number of art encampments to Governor's Island, NY. Prior to this, Thompson was Curator at MASS MoCA, where his massive exhibition The Interventionists looked to contemporary art engagements across the social sphere - including conferences, nomadic housing, free taxi rides, media detournement, and shoplifting.

Thompson will discuss his book Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the Age of Cultural Production. Borrowing from his experience as an activist and curator, Thompson discusses the difficulties and potentialities of producing meaning under a neoliberal information economy.