MSCCCP Open House Spring 2014

MS.CCCP

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation

Masters of Science in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture

1.0 Program Overview

Felicity D. Scott, Director; Mark Wasiuta, Co-Director

The Masters of Science in Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture is designed to offer advanced training in the fields of architectural criticism, publishing, curating, exhibiting, writing, and research through a two-year, full-time course of intensive academic study and independent research.

The program recognizes that architectural production is multi-faceted and diverse and that careers in architecture often extend beyond traditional modes of professional practice and academic scholarship, while at the same time reflecting and building upon them. of post-industrial development and indeed, of post-urban sensibility relative to traditional Euro-American settlement norms.

The CCCP program is structured to reflect this heterogeneity and the multiple sites and formats of exchange through which the field of architecture operates while at the same time sponsoring the ongoing critical development and interaction of such a matrix of practices and institutions.

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The program’s emphasis is thus on forging new critical, theoretical, and historical tools, and producing new and rigorous concepts and strategies for researching, presenting, displaying, and disseminating modern and contemporary architecture and closely related fields. The program is aimed primarily at those with a background in architecture who wish to advance and expand their critical and research skills in order to pursue professional and leadership careers as architectural critics, theorists, journalists, historians, editors, publishers, curators, gallerists, institute staff and directors, teachers, and research-based practitioners. Applicants might be seeking further academic training or specialization after a professional degree or years of teaching, or even at mid-career. They might also have worked in a related field and be seeking an academic forum to develop additional specializations in architecture. The program also provides the highest level of preparatory training for application to Ph.D. programs in architectural history and theory.

The CCCP program includes a mixture of required core colloquia, elective lectures, and seminars, and it culminates in the preparation of an independent thesis under the supervision of an advisor from the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP). This can take the form of: a written thesis on a historical or theoretical topic; a portfolio of critical writings; a print-based demonstration and visualization of rigorous, original research, or; it can involve

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the conceptualization, design, and a detailed prospectus and documentation for, or even production of (where feasible), an exhibition, publication, institute, major event, web-based initiative, time-based project, etc. The GSAPP faculty is unparalleled in offering a wide-range of expertise in the history, theory, and criticism of architecture, urban design, landscape, preservation, and spatial politics as well as in the conceptualization and production of publications and exhibitions.

3.0 Resources

2.0 Public Sphere

The Avery Library is one of the premier architectural libraries in the world and the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery has been forging an important paradigm of archive-based exhibitions under the school’s “Living Archive” project. Other primary resources include the Department of Publications, the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture, and the many Labs and Experimental Units associated with the school that are working in fields as diverse as experimental publication, spatial information design, responsive systems, infrastructure and poverty action, landscape, networks, memory, and more. Students are expected to take advantage of the extensive programs of lectures, panel discussions, symposia, exhibitions, and other events that form a key part of the curriculum at the school. Visiting workshops will also be led by leading practitioners in the fields of the publication, criticism, and exhibition of architecture, urbanism, and landscape.

The CCCP program aims to engage students within the public sphere through encounter with many formats, interfaces, or what we call “operating platforms,” ranging from public events—lectures, symposia, workshops, installations and exhibitions—to publications, web-based activities and other modes of dissemination of work and ideas.

In addition to the students’ involvement in all such areas of the GSAPP’s activities through CCCP assistantships (working with the directors of exhibitions, print publications, public events, and online media), and work generated from student theses, the program sponsors public lectures (as part of the main lecture series) and hosts workshops with visiting critics, curators, editors and institute directors.

Students have also initiated exhibitions, symposia, and other activities, notably including a series entitled “Interpretations,” beginning in Spring 2011 with a daylong symposium dedicated to exhibition practice.

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Students are able to draw on the remarkable faculty, research, publication, public programming, and exhibition resources at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

In addition to course offerings at the GSAPP, students are able to enroll in classes in other parts of the university including the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of the Arts, and the School of International and Public Affairs,

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subject to approval by the professor.

There are, for instance, many opportunities for collaborative exchange with the M.A. in Modern Art: Curatorial Studies Program of the Department of Art History and Archaeology. Other schools also have extensive public programs.

Beyond this, New York City offers unequalled resources for the study of architecture, museums, galleries, and the urban environment, including: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The Storefront for Art and Architecture, The Van Alen Institute, Artists Space, Max Protetch Gallery, Common Room, Ludlow 38, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, The Architects Newspaper, and other museums, galleries, and publishing houses in New York. The GSAPP also has close relations with a national and international network of affiliated museums, galleries and publications including the Canadian Center for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, Centres Georges Pompidou in Paris, The Center for Land Use Interpretation in Los Angles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, ACTAR Editorial, Domus, Abitare, and others.

4.0 Assistantships A number of competitive assistantships are available to CCCP students, including positions working with the Directors of Exhibitions, Print Publications, Special Events, and Online Communications, as detailed below.

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CCCP Students are also eligible to apply for other GSAPP Assistantships, such as those for Architectural History I & II and the Audio-Visual Department. These positions are typically advertised by the Dean’s office in May, with applications due in June. As such, they cannot be guaranteed in advance as part of an admissions offer. There are also other paid opportunities to work on the program’s website and other related activities. In addition, CCCP students are eligible to apply for Teaching Assistantships offered periodically through the Barnard and Columbia colleges undergraduate architecture program.

5.0 Internships The CCCP program does not require but does strongly recommend that students undertake internships during their course of study, either in New York during the academic semester or globally during the Summer and Winter breaks.

Relevant Internships are offered by MoMA, the CCA, the Van Alen Institute and Van Alen Books, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Arts, SFMOMA, MACBA, Studio-X, and other institutions and we are working to expand these opportunities. Students have also been accepted into Columbia University Libraries’ Graduate Student Internship Program and other university initiatives.

See individual student pages for information on internships to date. The program director is also working to expand these opportunities.

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an architectural critic, theorist, journalist, historian, editor, publisher, curator, gallerist, institute director, teacher, designer, research-based practitioner, etc. Concomitant with the ambitions of the CCCP program more generally, emphasis is on forging new critical, theoretical, and historical tools, and producing new concepts and strategies for researching, displaying, and disseminating modern and contemporary architecture and closely related fields.

7.0 Advisor Students are responsible for identifying and contacting an advisor for their thesis by the beginning of the second year of the program.

It is important that students choose an advisor who is able to critically contribute to the development of the thesis during the year including: reviewing the thesis prospectus; meeting periodically, as per requirements of the student; attending mid-term and final reviews in both the Fall and Spring semester; and grading student’s work in consultation with CCCP director.

The thesis is typically undertaken under the supervision of a GSAPP faculty member. In special cases, and subject to approval by the program director, a student’s thesis might be supervised by an appropriate outside qualified specialist, such as a curator, critic, or editor.

8.0 Prospectus

6.0 CCCP Thesis Requirements The second year of the CCCP program is dedicated primarily to the research and writing/production of a final thesis.

This can take the form of: a written thesis on a historical or theoretical topic; a portfolio of critical writings; a print-based demonstration and visualization of rigorous, original research, or; it could involve the conceptualization, design, and a detailed prospectus and documentation for, or when feasible the production of, an exhibition, publication, institute, major event, web-based initiative, time-based project, etc. Regardless of format, it must contain evidence of substantive research and conceptual rigor, and involve a written component and other materials that can be submitted in the form of a bound document in its final presentation.

Each student conducts his/her research independently, under the supervision of a faculty advisor, as well as participating in mid-term and final reviews each semester.

The thesis is intended to be the culmination of a CCCP student’s education and work at the GSAPP. It provides the opportunity to undertake and develop a project in detail, a project that demonstrates the student’s capacity to make a significant and original contribution to the field of architecture (or a closely related discipline), and which allows them to synthesize their critical approach, experience, and expertise in a relevant format of his/her choice. In this regard it is also conceived as an opportunity to build on and demonstrate critical and research skills that will be relevant to subsequent pursuit of a professional or academic career, whether as 7

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In the Fall semester, students begin by developing a 3-5 page written prospectus under the supervision of their primary advisor.

This document should: 1. Introduce the project, including setting out its critical stakes or ambitions, its relation and intended contribution to the field or mode of practice in which it participates, its general scope and proposed content, its format, its intended audience, and any other important characteristics of the work.

2. Identify the theoretical or methodological framework through which you will approach the thesis, including a bibliography or list of relevant or related work and key resources (whether they be archives, libraries, institutions, technologies, spaces, buildings, faculty, other experts, etc.) This part of the document can also indicate the other courses a student intends to take during the second year which relate to the development of their thesis.

3. Outline a schedule for the development of research during the Fall semester and for the writing or production of the thesis during the Spring semester. This should indicate both a set of self-imposed deadlines and those of the program, and it should clarify the format and scope of each phase of the thesis, including what will be presented at each of the four reviews (described below). While this schedule might change during the course of the thesis year as the work develops, it should be set out as a guideline to direct the work and, along with the collective reviews, keep the student on schedule. The completed prospectus must be submitted to both the CCCP Director and the student’s advisor by the end of the fourth week of the Fall semester. It can be updated during the year and serves as

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something like a syllabus for the project.

10.0 End of Year Exhibition

9.0 Reviews

Students are required to display some aspect of their thesis at the GSAPP’s End of Year Show.

Students will be required to present their thesis project four times during the course of the year.

In the Fall semester there will be a collective mid-term and a final review of each student’s research. In the Spring semester there will be a mid-term and final review of the overall project in a format appropriate to the work. In addition to being attended by all students, these reviews will include the CCCP Director, the advisors, and invited critics. Students are encouraged to suggest names for invited critics to the CCCP Director.

At each review students make a 15-minute presentation for the purpose of feedback and discussion of their thesis. The presentation format can vary according to the format of the thesis, but in all cases should include a succinct thesis statement, and an indication of working method, and proposed contribution to the field. The ambition, as with any review, is not only to present the work to a more public audience but also to get feedback for further development.

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This will vary according to the nature and format of the project. Students will coordinate with each other and with the Director of Exhibitions in preparing this installation.

11.0 Format and Final Documentation Requirements The specifications of the final thesis documentation varies according to the format of each project and any specific requirements detailed by the student’s advisor.

The following are provided as general guidelines of what is expected.

1. History/Theory Expectation: 12-15,000 word, illustrated documentation of a carefully researched and argued written thesis.

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The following are provided as general guidelines of what is expected.

1. History/Theory Expectation: 12-15,000 word, illustrated documentation of a carefully researched and argued written thesis.

2. Exhibition Expectation: Approximately 80-100 page document including detailed prospectus for the exhibition along with schematic design, identification of key objects and other media, key wall texts, and other elements such as a pamphlet or catalog. The written component should include a text equivalent to a catalog essay.

3. Criticism Expectation: 12-15,000 word, illustrated document, which includes an introduction to the work, along with 8-10 individual pieces of criticism which together demonstrate the development of an original critical voice and position, and an understanding of the history and state of the field.

4. Research and Visualization Expectation: Approximately 80-100 page, illustrated document including introductory text and extensive and developed form of visualization of an original research topic.

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5. Publication Expectation: this could range from producing an issue 0 of a magazine or journal, to a well-developed catalog or book proposal, including a significant text component, design (or design guidelines) along with detailed evaluation of funding, audience, contribution to the field, etc.

6. Institution Expectation: 12,000-15,000 word document outlining in detail the nature and operation of a proposed institution dedicated to architecture or a related field. This might include a carefully developed set of framing documents outlining its ambitions and mandate, and its proposed contribution to its field, as well as situating the institute within a broader framework of related institutions, both contemporary and historical. It should also describe the institutional structure, identify possible funding sources, location, activities, etc.

7. Other To be approved in consultation with advisor and CCCP Director.

Regardless of format, each thesis must have at least a short written component, which builds upon the student’s prospectus and includes other relevant documentation produced during the year. This needs to be bound and produced in triplicate: one copy for the advisor, one for the records of the CCCP program, and one for the student’s own records.

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13.0 Core Seminars Fall Semester A4032: CCCPArch Colloquium I: Operating Platforms: Publication, Exhibition, Research Professor: Felicity D. Scott Description: The domain of architectural work is multi-faceted, as are the multiple forms of practice and knowledge that reflect back upon it. In this sense architectural expertise appears in many formats, media, and institutional frameworks that extend beyond, while often informing, the discipline’s role in the production of buildings. This heterogeneous field incorporates periodicals, books, exhibitions, installations, research institutes and labs, pedagogy, criticism, manifestos, historical scholarship, posters, films, videos, performances, conferences, and much more. These many architectural modalities, as well as their institutional and mediatic interfaces, or forms of dissemination, have each, in distinct ways, played important roles in the conceptualization and transformation of the discipline.

12.0 Requirements of Thesis and Method of Evaluation Theses will be assessed according the following criteria: • Clear articulation of the stakes of the project and evidence of a strong understanding of its contribution and relevance to the field(s).

• Evidence of extensive research and a strong understanding of the material under study and its critical context. Knowledge of existing work in the field and reference to it.

Designed to look closely and critically at these fields of practice, this colloquium will focus on three interrelated platforms: (1) publications including magazines, reports, newspapers, and books and the architects, critics, writers, and publishers associated with them; (2) exhibitions in galleries, museums, worlds fairs, expos, biennales, and triennales and the architects, curators, and institutions involved, and; (3) experimental formats of research and the collaborative arrangements and institutions through which they function. We will investigate what role these have played in the formulation and understanding of architecture and will work to identify their contribution to seminal debates, to transformations in architecture’s technical and aesthetic characteristics, to sponsoring critical experimentation, as well as to the careers of many architects. We will distinguish the different forms of expertise they manifest; ask how they function as interfaces and to what audiences; and consider whether they serve to consolidate and codify existing architectural paradigms or to forge new critical and conceptual and well as aesthetic, material, and programmatic possibilities. We will look at how various practices emerged in their specific historical context and ask to what degree did they function to maintain a status quo or to act as critical and polemical launchings. We will ask, in turn, what scope there is for pushing new formats, developing new critical concepts, opening new trajectories of investigation, and expanding the very territories of the discipline.

Session 1: Introduction: Operating Platforms

• Evidence of an innovative approach to the topic or format.

Session 2: Storage and Dissemination Media

• Evidence of a strong understanding of the history and contemporary importance of the practices the thesis relates to, and a self-consciousness regarding how the work is situated within such critical, discursive, institutional, and/or historical contexts.

Session 3: Magazines and Manifestoes

• Clear argument or “thesis.”

• Appropriate acknowledgement of sources and accurate citations.

• Clarity of presentation, including verbal and visual components.

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Session 4: Figures of the Critic/Tropes of Criticism Session 5: Writing Architecture: Mumford, Banham, Huxtable, Sorkin, Ouroussoff Session 6: Institutional Space of the Museum Session 7: Curatorial Practice

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MS.CCCP Degree Requirements

TERM 01

COURSE

TERM 03

TERM 04

ARCH COLLOQUIUM I

ARCH COLLOQUIUM II

ARCH THESIS I

ARCH THESIS II

12 PTS ELECTIVES

ELECTIVE LECTURE

ELECTIVE LECTURE

ELECTIVE SEMINAR

ELECTIVE SEMINAR

6 PTS

ELECTIVES

ELECTIVE LECTURE

ELECTIVE LECTURE

6 PTS

ELECTIVES

ELECTIVE LECTURE

ELECTIVE LECTURE

48 PTS

TOTAL

12 PTS

12 PTS

24 PTS

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CORE COURSES

TERM 02

MS.CCCP

12 PTS

12 PTS

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Do architecture and design play a de�initive role in these changes?

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What does you answer depend on?

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Architect

Urban Planner Designer Citizen

Curator Editor Critic

Given President Rousseff´s New Year's af�irmation that “We are managing to turn a moment of crisis into an opportunity and entering a new era of prosperity," it seems that contemporary Brazilians are increasingly optimistic regarding the changes in their midst.

However, as designers interested in what change might or might not mean for a country of 200 million people, we thought it important to begin with a simple question:

Architecture has a decisive role in how space is being built and the legacy of urban construction.

Unfortunately what I see is an explosion of a series of projects that aim for pro�it more than for leaving bene�its to the population. We architects must be aware of the legacy they will leave and what part we play in this.

YES 69% MAYBE 9% NO 23%

Do you think Brazil is really changing?

Writer

Architect, Urban Planner, Citizen

Activist

Advocacy Worker Bureaucrat Artist

Other:

What is really changing is the foreign view of Brazil, but for those who live here, life is expensive, housing prices are high to rent/buy, and architects are always in the hands of big construction companies held by engineers. Although, a few are becoming able to make some nice/different architecture and there were many competitions. On the other hand, Brazilians are starting to give value to good design.

Why do you think we think so?

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If MAYBE, what does your answer depend

Artist

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How is changing international involvement affecting Brazil's planning sovereignty?

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Architect

Are designers working in new ways (for example through experiments with technology, new business models, or new platforms for discussion previously considered outside the realm of the designer)?

10% NO

Who are we?

As graduate students in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University, this visit to Rio provides a framework for us to explore the fundamental questions of our program in a geopolitical context under extreme and self-conscious �lux.

CCCP 2012 Meredith Baber, José Esparza, Atreyee Ghosh, Arianne Kouri, Albert Lopez, Jacob Moore, Carlos Mínguez Carrasco, Victoria Oeye, Ismaelly Peña, Fernando Portal.

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If NO, why not?

Apart from the obvious, that there is a greater interest in foreign investment in Brazil, there is also an extreme increase in the exchange of ideas, insights and experiences about what is happening in other countries and what can be replicated locally.

Architecture is still inaccessible to the majority of the population.

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This is the X of the problem…

Advocacy Worker

If MAYBE, after the World Cup and the Olympics, how do you think new infrastructure will affect Brazil's population and class structure?

The focus is not on the population, but if they bene�it then it depends on if its maintained afterways...that’s the problem.

Never happened through government policy. There were occasional moments of support but, in general the government ignores architecture and design.

Artist

Urban Planner, Citizen

Session 9: Full Scale: Fairs, Building Exhibitions, Biennales, Expos, Environments, Installations Session 10: Case Study (MoMA) Session 11: Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies: Research, Books, Magazines, Exhibitions, Pedagogy, and other Textual Economies

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If NO, can you recall a moment when it has?

Brasilia, Machu Picchu Citizen

Session 8: Exhibition Practice

Session 12: Research: Para-Academies

Given these shifting borders, do you think that the government's role in shaping design has changed?

Citizen, Architect, Urban Planner

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What role do you think that an institutional format such as Studio X might play?

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There is a greater criticism over what is being produced. People are more aware of the vital role of architecture to the progress of a nation.

Do you think that institutions can play a positive role in building this relationship?

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70% YES 20% MAYBE

http://goo.gl/L5cJI

Architect, Urban Planner, Citizen

Do you think that there is a relationship between architecture, design and equitable human development in Rio?

Architect

Has this effected a shift in audience?

How?

SIM TALVEZ NÃO

The borders should be crossed.

Architect, Critic Citizen, Urban Planner

on?

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Insuf�icient social policies

Citizen, Activist, Artist

Yes, provided they recognize the general population as an audience and not only clients, the elite.

If the design community as such isn't changing, how is the public affecting design (presuming that it is)?

Architect

There have been material changes, “palpable” ones, imposed by world events that here will have force, however the main changes and movings reside in cultural changes! (I would like to continue the survey, or it shouldn’t count!)

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Planning and design do not play a leading role in Brazilian society, we still celebrate improvisation.

100% YES

Are you…? (please feel free to choose more than one answer)

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Has this role involved a change in the borders of what might be considered the "design" community?

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Architecture is no longer needed.

If NO, why not?

As one participant of the survey points out, time is needed to understand such changes. For now, Rio’s transformations are certainly evident in architecture and planning, but real change, as that same respondent notes, also implies a different way of thinking about “respect, dignity, social responsibility, corruption, public services, politics, etc.” As practitioners, we must be fully aware of the con�licts involved with true change in order to be able to draft long-lasting and effective alternatives.

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YES 72% MAYBE 9% NO 24%

2% NO 28% MAYBE 72% YES

Our site work left one thing clear: Brazil is changing rapidly on many fronts—�inancially, urbanistically, and culturally, to mention just a few. Additionally, many of the residents who took part in this survey do acknowledge the fact that the practice of architecture is involved in these changes; but what dominates the conversation is a complete lack of faith that well thought-out and equitable development is actually being put forward. In Brazil, awareness of the fact that politics and architecture go hand-in-hand seems to have haunted its residents through decades of institutional disillusionment, with architecture and planning projects always favoring only a few.

16% MAYBE 26% NO 58% YES

With the upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics overlayed upon the recent economic boom and bust, Brazil—and particularly Rio—�ind themselves at the center of worldwide attention.

Based on our assumption that architecture and design are playing a vital role in the development of the country today, a �ield survey was conducted as an attempt to initiate a series of discussions around Brazil’s rapidly changing urban landscape, focusing particularly on Rio de Janeiro.

47% YES 18% MAYBE 35% NO

Sim / Talvez / Não

Designer, Citizen, Curator, Editor, Writer, Artist

14.0 Elective Courses Spring Semester A4033: CCCPArch Colloquium II: Contemporary Critical Discourse Professor: Mark Wasiuta In addition to the required colloquia and thesis courses, CCCP students have the opportunity to take a range of courses offered at the GSAPP and elsewhere in the University. Relevant courses within the GSAPP are found primarily within the offerings in history and theory, and include lectures and seminars and, when relevant, can take the form of an independent study under the supervision of a faculty member. Some of these courses have been designed specifically for the CCCP program, others are part of the broader history and theory curriculum at the school. Students are also able to enroll in Visual Studies courses, as well as nonstudio based offerings in the Planning and Preservation departments. Students have also enrolled in courses offered by Art History, Anthropology, and in the Schools of Law and Journalism, as well as taking foreign language classes. For a list of relevant courses, see the list below or refer to individual student’s pages for examples of how students have selected their elective courses.

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CCCP Affiliated Courses: Buckley, A4566 Architecture, Print, Politics: Case Studies 1945 - 1975, Spring Inaba, A4038 Experimental Research Practices, Fall Kenneth Frampton, A4616 World Architecture & The Modern Tradition, Fall Laura Kurgan, A4568 Mapping, Spring Scott, A4705 Architecture after 1945, Fall Wasiuta, A4581 Exhibition Histories: Curatorial Theories, Fall

Examples of other course offerings in history and theory: Wigley, A4469 The History of Architecture Theory, Fall Martin, A6670 The American University: Architecture and the Enlightenment, Fall McLeod, A4374 Contemporary Theory & Criticism 1966, Spring Wright, A4529 Post-Colonial Architecture and Urbanism, Spring Frampton, A8905 PHD Seminar: European Avant-Garde Art & Architecture 1918 - 1958, Spring Wilson, A4642 Space + The Politics of Memory, Fall Varnelis, A4515 Network Culture: History & Theory, Fall Scott A4780 Architecture. Human Rights. Spatial Politics, Spring Wasiuta, A6452 Air Space, Air Time, Fall

15.0 CCCP Thesis Abstracts - 2011 Nora Akawi, “DARABZINE//AN EXPERIMENT IN PUBLIC CURATION.” Advisor: Felicity Scott ABSTRACT The construction of homogenous and coherent collective archives has always been essential for the formation of national and cultural identities, the establishment and maintenance of power and control, and the qualification and valorization of certain cultural and political narratives. Challenging the homogenous character of collective archives is thus an act of civil resistance towards self determination. Rather than stored in the monuments of power localizable in time and space, power and command in control societies float in the digital networks of data and code. The homogeneity of digital archives can never be fully guaranteed.

Although digital networks are not intrinsically anarchistic, and media spaces for communication are largely privatized, no single person or group controls the network. The uncontrollable and unpredictable character of the network, as well as the immediate and horizontal distributive character of the Internet, offer unprecedented possibilities for public participatory archiving practices, and their acces19

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sibility to wide publics across the globe. DarabZINE (railing in arabic) is an online archiving platform that seeks to exploit the potentially subversive character of the network by experimenting with a participatory, public, and accessible process of curatorial, archival, and editorial practices. The project will result in an online archiving-social network, a blog to track its progress, and finally, a print edition of darabZINE. This potentially expansive network will make visible the work and stories of students, scholars, activists, and citizens on politics, architecture, art, human rights and media in Palestine, where, despite the emerging critical work in these fields, the spaces for aggregating it are limited.

Adam Bandler, “INTOLERANCE: OR, THE INEQUITY OF INACCESSIBILITY.” Advisor: Mark Wasiuta ABSTRACT The Berlin Wall was designed with the sole purpose of rendering the city of Berlin inaccessible, and as a piece of architecture, it satisfied its program with the utmost efficiency and clarity. Without the standardization of architectural components, construction and military logistics, its form and speed would have been nearly impossible to achieve. As an urban project, it set new standards in zoning that would become ubiquitous across the rest of the world, from Arizona to Israel, airports to internment camps. The wall, fulfilling the most essential of architectural functions, mastered the separation of inside from outside, haves from have-nots.

Universal in-access was not achieved simply by drawing a line on a map: spanning the wall’s twenty-eight year duration, it was continuously demolished, rebuilt and renovated to more efficiently fulfill its function. This project attempts to describe the simultaneously developing technologies of escape and counterescape, access and in-access, from the manned coils of concertina wire in 1961 to the standardized wall components, electronic surveillance and codified patrols in 1989. In order to read the wall in these terms, I will not be presenting a paper as such. Rather, I will be reconstructing the design of the wall in the mode of the construction set, the coded language of architectural production. This method of drawing is critical to the project in three ways: 1. It sheds the wall of its East/ West, capitalist/ socialist ideology; 2. It explicitly illustrates the technological developments over its 28-year duration; and 3. It translates a historical artifact into a codified language understood by all members of the design, construction, and code writing and enforcement constituencies. In sum, four drawing sets will be produced, roughly corresponding to the four phases of the wall’s construction.

Three sites within the city of Berlin have also been chosen to describe the varying contexts of the wall, how those contexts aided or prevented certain modes of escape and how the wall evolved to prevent further escapes. In this way, a historical analysis of the wall will be produced, demonstrating innovations in wall standards, codes and enforcement, and how these technologies came to define architectural access (or, in-access) in the city of Berlin.

Yun Jie Chung, “Relocating Curatorial Practices and a Nostalgia for Architectural Narratives in Do Ho Suh’s Home Projects.”

Advisor: Felicity Scott Sarah Cloonan, “Reshaping the Public Sphere and its Inverse Effect on Architectural Space.”

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Tong Tong, “Prospectus for a Publication on Architecture, Theater and Cinema.”

Advisor: Kenneth Frampton ABSTRACT The thesis considers John Ely Burchard’s career from his appointment as dean of humanities and social sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949 until his retirement in 1964. Rather than presenting a narrative biography, the thesis touches upon three contexts of Burchard’s career as a window to investigate some of the institutional and intellectual histories of architecture in the two decades following World War II. The first is located within Burchard’s work at M.I.T. The second focuses on his activities with organizations that could be considered cognates to the academy such as the American Academy of Art and Sciences and the Graham Foundation. Finally, the third traces his relationship at Architectural Record from 1951 until 1961.

Federica Soletta, “The (critical) Act of Curating Criticism: The Curator as Critic.”

Advisor: Anthony Vidler

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP Seminars on Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture

Columbia GSAPP + CCCP Class of 2013 present:

12:00-20:30

Fayerweather 200 GSAPP, Columbia University New York City / 2012

Promiscuous Encounters

8:30pm Reception at Brownies 8:00pm Final Discussion / Closing Remarks Moderated by Felicity D. Scott All participants on stage 6:30pm Lecture Andrés Jaque Andrés Jaque Architects and the Office for Political Innovation Wood Auditorium

Program

Interpretations:

Meredith Baber, “Icelandic Research Fellowship” [suitcase-fellowship] M.S. in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP)

Pollyanna Rhee, “ELUCIDATING THE ARTICULATE ARCHITECT: THE OBJECTS OF JOHN BURCHARD’S ‘ALIENATED AFFECTIONS.’” Advisor: Felicity Scott Free and open to the public - Limited seats RSVP: cccp-events@arch.columbia.edu 5:45pm Break 3:15pm Second Seminar Session Joseph Grima / Markus Miessen / Rodrigo Tisi / Mitch McEwen Moderated by Mark Wasiuta and the CCCP Class 2013 2:45pm Coffee Break 12:15pm First Seminar Session Keller Easterling / Andrés Jaque / Reinhold Martin / Pelin Tan Moderated by Mark Wasiuta and the CCCP Class 2013 12:00pm Greetings / Opening Remarks Felicity D. Scott / Curatorial Team

March 23rd

16.0 CCCP Thesis Abstracts – 2012

The close articulation of concept and project has taken multiple forms within the recent history of conceptual architecture. What concepts are currently at play within or driving contemporary architectural production that succeed in producing scenarios we might still call conceptual? Does conceptual practice have a freer or a more limited palette for production?

In what ways can critical, curatorial or conceptual architecture turn into a social and politically engaged practice?

Promiscuous Encounters has two main ambitions: first, to examine the fascinating blurriness and productive interplay between the critical, curatorial and conceptual capacities of architecture, including how and where they intersect and overlap and, second, to expand the definitions of what these terms mean in relation to theory and practice by reexamining the sites of criticality and their modes of operation. When and where, we might ask, is an architectural practice Critical, Curatorial or Conceptual today? Can we, or would we want to, separate these kinds of practices or are we subject to an inevitable and productive promiscuity?

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In response, this project proposes establishing a program to foster the scholarly and intellectual development of young architects with terminal degrees, to promote research at a local and global scale, and to simultaneously establish networks between existing practitioners in the Reykjavik context and students in the global context. In doing so, it will further provide access and insight into the architectural community of Iceland, acting as a bridge between the education and practice of architects.

This unique condition of dispersal provides for an interesting problematic, one that impacts the greater Icelandic public in a particular way, namely that, given the young presence of architecture within Icelandic academia, there are no research funds available to scholars or practitioners. The impact of this lack of research funds extends beyond the domain of strictly scholarly pursuits, for, as this thesis hopes to demonstrate and in turn address, it creates a void in discursive dialogue within the architectural community.

The architectural profession in Iceland represents an extremely rich and diverse, yet small community that derives its’ character from a dispersed presence in the larger global sphere. A post-national architectural identity results from the education of an architect, which has only occurred internal to Iceland in the last decade.

Students are still required to obtain professional degrees outside of Iceland, a requirement that implicitly promotes a global understanding of the architectural field.

Advisor: Kazys Varnelis #pe_gsapp

Following an interrogation of our keys concepts and concerns, we want to question, in turn, whether either a lack of, or a strong commitment to, being critical has facilitated the opening up of our field, architecture, to many forms of curatorial practice. Does curatorial practice have to be strictly guided by a critical position in order to avoid falling into the trap of mere compilations of objects, images, texts, etc? To what extent is curatorial practice a new trend in the field? Does it lack or produce specialized knowledge? What are the main constraints emerging from the field of curating within architecture?

Not so long ago, in 1988 Mark Wigley provocatively suggested that critical work was only possible in the realm of building. Today, after multiple paradigm shifts in the nature of building and architecture, we want to ask: what is it to produce a critical work now? How is criticality achieved? Is being critical an urgent or a captious position, the latter in the sense of being contentious for its own sake?

M.S. in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP) Fayerweather 200, GSAPP Columbia University New York City / 2012

Interpretations is a series of symposia/seminars organized by M.S. CCCP students, initiated in 2011 by: José Esparza, Carlos Mínguez, Jacob Moore and Fernando Portal.

Class of 2013 Allison Carafa, Jihoi Lee, Jess Ngan, Helene Nguyen, Sarah Rafson, Bonny Yau Promiscuous Encounters Curatorial Team Francisco Díaz, Nina Valerie Kolowratnik, Marcelo López-Dinardi, Marina Otero Promiscuous Encounters will take the form of a day-long, roundtable seminar with invited speakers from multiple backgrounds to open discussion. The seminar is organized as two sessions, each one with four 10-minute presentations addressing a set of questions regarding the Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual in architecture. Everyone attending the event is invited to actively engage in the conversation.

The seminar will not be video or audio recorded, however, everyone attending is encouraged to “record” their own interpretation of the Promiscuous Encounters via their notes, sketches, photographs or subsequent reflections. These interpretations will form the basis of a forthcoming printed publication of the event.

Format

On Audience Architecture is developed for and within certain audiences or constituencies.

Architectural education, production, and consumption is always mediated by the conception of an audience. Considering the possibilities of a promiscuous positioning between critical, curatorial and conceptual practices, how can we –as an internally split, or multiply positioned group—conceive of an audience for our work, or even produce one? How much of our practice should be determined by this understanding of an audience? Can or should it be independent from such a specter?

On Productivity We would like to ask whether a blurring of disciplinary boundaries or even an in-between mode of practice might stir an increased creative productivity? If so, what kind of products result? Can the product of a vital promiscuity ever take the form of built architecture? How can we think about or otherwise imagine the productivity of promiscuity and the transgression of limits through which it operates? What sorts of transgressions push this to the point of not being acceptable to the field?

On Specialization The humanist tradition informing the comprehensive figure of the master architect has significantly waned, architectural practice is now shifting dramatically towards an increasing level of specialization in all working fields. Among other factors, this shift has been motivated by the constant turbulence of our socio-economical systems. Not only the market, but also the academy, we might say, push both education and practice towards more specialized knowledge while, simultaneously, an increasing number of professionals claim a more diffuse and open role. Is specialization a condition imposed by market-driven forces without a genealogy in our field? Is it relevant to claim that our work is the work of specialists?

On Promiscuity During the last decade the field within which architects work and operate has become increasingly unstable, just as it has for other professionals. To begin with, the recent economic crisis has had a real impact upon the number of available jobs. Considering that economic context, is the current promiscuity among architectural practices an intentional response to, or rather a consequence of, that instability and its impact upon the definition of labor? Does this promiscuity lead to the opening of certain practices onto a new type of discipline? Do you consider yourself to be part of a new discipline? Can or should such a promiscuous form of practice be institutionalized?

Questions

3:15pm Second Seminar Session Joseph Grima / Markus Miessen / Rodrigo Tisi / Mitch McEwen Moderated by Mark Wasiuta and the CCCP Class 2013 2:45pm Coffee Break 12:15pm First Seminar Session Keller Easterling / Andrés Jaque / Reinhold Martin / Pelin Tan Moderated by Mark Wasiuta and the CCCP Class 2013 12:00pm Greetings / Opening Remarks Felicity D. Scott / Curatorial Team

8:30pm Reception at Brownies 8:00pm Final Discussion / Closing Remarks Moderated by Felicity D. Scott All participants on stage 6:30pm Lecture Andrés Jaque Andrés Jaque Architects and the Office for Political Innovation Wood Auditorium 5:45pm Break

Program

Keller Easterling, Joseph Grima, Andrés Jaque, Reinhold Martin, Mitch McEwen, Markus Miessen, Felicity D. Scott, Pelin Tan, Rodrigo Tisi, Mark Wasiuta

12:00-20:30

March 23rd Participants Keller Easterling Keller Easterling is an architect and writer in New York City. Her book, Enduring Innocence: Global Architecture and its Politic al Masquerades (MIT, 2005) researches familiar spatial products that have landed in difficult or hyperbolic political situations around the world. A previous book Organization Space: Landscapes, Highways and Houses in America applies network theory to a discussion of American infrastructure and development formats.

A forthcoming book, Extrastatecraft, examines global infrastructure networks as a medium of polity.

Andrés Jaque Andrés Jaque and the Office for Political Innovation explore the potential of post-foundational politics and symmetrical approaches to the sociology of technology to rethink architectural practices. The office's slogan is 'architecture is technologically rendered society' and is currently devoted to the study of connected-domesticities like politically-activated urbanism.

Their production has been published in many international journals and exposed in contemporary cultural institutions such as the Schweizerisches Architektur Museum in Basel, the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine de Paris, the Hellerau Festspielhaus in Dresden, La Casa Encendida in Madrid, the Instituto Valenciano de Arte moderno (IVAM) in Valencia, the 7 Mostra di Architettura de la Bienal de Venezia or the Bienal de Arquitectura Iberoamericana 2004 en Lima.

Their work ‘Casa Sacerdotal Diocesana de Plasencia’ has been awarded with the Dionisio Hernández Gil Prize and has been finalist to the VIII Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo. ‘TUPPER HOME’ has been finalist of the European Award Mies van der Rohe. In 2010 the installation ‘FRAY HOME HOME’ was presented at the Biennale di Venezia 2010 invited by Kazuyo Sejima. In 2011, the research and prototype- making project ‘SWEET PARLIAMENT HOME’ was presented at the Gwangju Biennale by invitation of Ai Weiwei and Seung H. Sang.

Andrés Jaque has been Tessenow Stipendiat and visiting teacher in a number of international universities and has lectured extensively throughout the world including Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule de Zurich, Istituto Politecnico di Milano, Centre International pour la Ville de Paris, Centre pour l'Architecture et le Paysage (Brussels), Sociedad Central (Buenos Aires), Berlage Institut (Rotterdam) or Museo Nacional (Bogota).

Reinhold Martin Reinhold Martin is Associate Professor of Architecture in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, where he directs the PhD program in architecture and the Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture. He is a founding co-editor of the journal Grey Room and has published widely on the history and theory of modern and contemporary architecture. He is the author of The Organizational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space (MIT Press, 2003), and Utopia’s Ghost: Architecture and Postmodernism, Again (Minnesota, 2010), as well as the co-author, with Kadambari Baxi, of Multi-National City: Architectural Itineraries (Actar, 2007).

Martin is the lead author of The Buell Hypothesis and co-organizer, with Barry Bergdoll, of the workshop/exhibition “Foreclosed: Rehousing the American Dream” at the Museum of Modern Art. He is currently working on a history of American research universities.

Markus Miessen Markus Miessen is an architect and writer.

In 2002, he set up Studio Miessen, a platform and agency for architecture, spatial strategy and critical cultural analysis. In various collaborations, Miessen has published, amongst other titles: Waking Up from The Nightmare of Participation (Expodium, 2011), The Nightmare of Participation (Sternberg, 2010), Institution Building (Sternberg, 2009), East Coast Europe (Sternberg, 2008), The Violence of Participation (Sternberg, 2007), With/Without: Spatial Products, Practices, and Politics in the Middle East (Bidoun, 2007), and Did Someone Say Participate? (MIT, 2006). His work has been published and exhibited widely, including at the Lyon, Venice, Performa, Manifesta, Gwangju, and Shenzhen Biennials. In 2008, he founded the Winter School Middle East (Dubai/Kuwait). As Visiting Professor, he has taught at the AA, London (2004–08), Berlage Institute, Rotterdam (2009–10) and HfG Karlsruhe (2010-11). Miessen is now a professor for Critical Spatial Practice at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, and guest professor at HEAD Geneva as well as USC Los Angeles. www.studiomiessen.com www.criticalspatialpractice.org www.winterschoolmiddleeast.org Mitch McEwen Mitch McEwen is Principal of A. Conglomerate and founder of SUPERFRONT, a Brooklyn-based not-for-profit organization for architectural

experimentation and creative interdisciplinary exchange. Founded in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn in January 2008, SUPERFRONT has produced over twenty public exhibits in venues including the Pacific Design Center in LA, the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Marygrove College in Detroit, and an abandoned loading dock in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Mitch has been profiled for her work as both a designer and architectural curator by ARTnews, Architect magazine, and PIN-UP magazine. She has taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP and Instructor at NJIT College of Architecture. She holds an M.Arch from Columbia GSAPP and A.B. from Harvard in Social Studies.

Felicity D. Scott Felicity D. Scott is director of the program in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCP) at the GSAPP, where she also teaches architectural history and theory. Her research focuses on articulating genealogies of political and theoretical engagement with questions of technological transformation within modern and contemporary architecture, as well as within the discourses and institutions that have shaped and defined the discipline. In addition to publishing numerous articles in journals, magazines, and edited anthologies, her book, Architecture or Techno-Utopia: Politics After Modernism, was published by MIT Press in 2007, and Living Archive 7: Ant Farm, appeared on ACTAR Editorial in

May 2008. She is also a founding co-editor of Grey Room, a quarterly journal of architecture, art, media, and politics published quarterly by MIT Press since Fall 2000.

Pelin Tan Pelin Tan is involved in research-based artistic and architectural projects that focus on urban conflict and territorial politics, gift economy, the condition of labor and mixed methods in research.

Trained in Sociology, completed her PhD thesis on the concept of ‘locality’ in socially engaged art practices at ITU that she partly has preceded at Berlin Humboldt Univ. Art History Dept. (DAAD, 2006-2007). Tan proceeded her postdoc on “Artistic Research at MIT Art, Culture and Technology under the directorship of Ute Meta Bauer. She lectured at Art History-TU Berlin, MA in Architecture and Urban Studies (adbk – Nürenberg).

Currently, Assist.Prof. at New Media Dept.

KHAS, Istanbul. Tan was a research/curatorial resident at IASPIS (Sweden), GeoAir (Georgia). Guest curator at Witte de With / TENT for TRACER(2003 – 2004), and curated Knut Asdam solo show at DEPO (Istanbul), Innocent Act, StudyoKAHEM – an architectural research at 10th Istanbul Biennial. Tan is involved in research projects: “Institutions by Artists”, Vancouver (with Anton Vidokle, 2010-2012), “Labor in Contemporary Art”, Istanbul (with Önder Özengi, 2011-2013) and Artistic Research in Asia. Editor of Muhtelif (Istanbul); Advisory editorArtMargin contemporary art

magazine MIT and NOON – Journal of Contemporary Art and Visual Culture of Gwangju Biennial Foundation.

Collaborative writer of Domus (Milan); Pipeline contemporary art magazine (HongKong); Express (Istanbul), co-editor of Arch+ magazine Istanbul Issue (2009).

Rodrigo Tisi Rodrigo Tisi is an Architect with a Masters degree on Architecture from Universidad Católica de Chile (1999). He got his PhD on the department of Performance Studies, New York University (2011), with a thesis about Architecture and Performance. Tisi is currently the dean of the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture at UNIACC (University of Arts, Science and Communication) in Santiago. In 2007, he founded MESS, a platform that uses the lens of performance to analyze, explore and promote collaborative work among artists and architects (and related professionals) to project the conditions of the contemporary city and its society. In 2010 he was the Director and Curator of the exhibition SCL2110, held at the Museum of Contemporary Arts in Santiago, Chile. Recently, Rodrigo Tisi has been invited as one of the seven architects to represent Chile in the next Venice Biennale of Architecture 2012.

Mark Wasiuta Mark Wasiuta is an architect and theorist based in New York City. He studied at the University of British Columbia, Princeton

University and Harvard University.

He currently teaches at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation, where he is Director of Exhibitions and Director of Global Experiments in Art and Architecture.

He has curated and produced numerous exhibitions including, “Dan Graham’s New Jersey,” “Environments and Counter Environments: Experimental Media in Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, 1972" and “Operators’ Exercises: Open Form Film and Architecture.”

He is partner in the research office, “International House of Architecture,” that is currently developing a publication of projects based on the history of Los Angeles air, its pollution and other forms of contaminants. His own research is focused on the turn to theories of environment and environmental design in postwar architecture. He is recipient of recent awards from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, The Banff New Media Institute, The Canada Council for the Arts and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Interpretations:

Joseph Grima Joseph Grima is a Milan-based architect and researcher. He is the editor in chief of Domus magazine and the former director of Storefront for Art and Architecture, a nonprofit exhibition and events space in New York City. He teaches at Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, and is a regular contributor to a wide range of international publications. Recent projects include LandGrab City and the New City Reader.

Seminars on Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture

Promiscuous Encounters

The Curatorial Team is very grateful to Felicity D. Scott and Mark Wasiuta for their insightful advice, and to GSAPP's Dean Mark Wigley for his generous support.

Columbia GSAPP + CCCP Class of 2013 present:

Original poster artwork by Fernando Portal.

Jordan Carver “Known Unknowns: Sovereignty Commoditization and the “War on Terror”” Advisor: Mabel O. Wilson In a career marked my many feats of great verbal acrobatics, it was on February 12, 2002 that marked what could easily be called Donald Rumsfeld’s magnum opus. At a Department of Defense press conference answering questions pertaining to the buildup of the war with Iraq, and the then possible existence of weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld uttered his now famous maxim: “Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

It is within the territory of the known unknown that this project sets out to explore.

The focuses of inquiry are “black sites,” an international, and highly classified, prison network established by the U.S. government shortly after the September 11th attacks. Even the name suggests the known unknown. The means of investigation depends on interrogating redacted documents, newspaper clippings, NGO reports, public satellite imagery, court documents—all incomplete in and of themselves, yet when pieced together allow for the black sites network to emerge.

This emergence cannot just be located within the context of the so-called “war on terror” for it relies on a much more sophisticated reasoning and nuanced linguistic reading of national and international laws involving the conduct of war and international relations.

At the center of this discussion is the sovereign, and how the manifestation and implementation of sovereignty has evolved from its earliest conceptions at the beginning of the modern nation state to something that has morphed into an assemblage of complex relationships, the least of which are the traditional notions of power and territory. These relationships are interrogated and examined through various media. Key to this investigation is a methodical unpacking of the various spatialities the war inhabits. Spaces of politics, economics and nation-state interrelations mix with spaces of confinement, interrogation and the intimate space of the body.

What is known about the black sites is scattered across the internet and published in books and reports by enterprising reporters and human rights organizations. This project attempts to deploy the method of critique as a process for organizing this vast quantity of information. The assemblage operates as both the critical action and its organizational representation, disassembling government documents to understand how these new forms of power operate, and then reassembling the evidence of what this power has wrought.

José Esparza “Institutional Infrastructures: An Alternative Model for Architectural Education in Mexico City” Advisor: Felicity D. Scott This thesis is developed under the assumption that the institutional working models of architectural education do not reflect the social demands of our time. It pre-

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supposes that due to their institutional condition, complex sociopolitical events that shape our contemporary global context are seldom taken into account. This thesis contests the stringent infrastructures of learning institutions and attempts to present an alternative and responsive working model where contextual issues are addressed and introduced into the larger discourse network of practice through the development of a flexible operating framework.

For a grounded perspective, this thesis will be developed in the Mexico City, a place with an active community of professionals but with a limited access to platforms that foment alternative practices. Through a two-stage process, this thesis will first survey and analyze a selection of present-day learning institutions as well other non-institutional networks and organizations in Mexico and abroad, to consequentially draft an informed proposal for an alternative working model for architectural education, titled: Central de Arquitectura de la Ciudad de México.

Central de Arquitectura’s ambition is to operate as an intra-institutional center for architectural activities—a bridge linking the insular nature of institutional work by offering a dynamic and flexible program. Moreover, it attempts to put forward a possible new format of architectural education that aims to diversify the practice of architecture.

Atreyee Ghosh “Interpretations and Interventions: Tulshibaug Temple and Market Complex, Pune” Advisor: Kenneth Frampton Interpretations and Interventions: Tulshibaug Temple and Market Complex, Pune aims to make a physical and operational assessment of the architecture and historical urban fabric of the Tulshibaug temple and market complex in the city of Pune, India, in order to develop a critical discourse that in turn directs new development in these areas. The research looks at the site as an example of an “indigenous modernity”, and interpreting the local opinions and issues, aims to propose a format for physical and cybernetic interventions by the continuous collaboration of local students of architecture colleges and the user group.

The research acknowledges the possibility of new development co-existing and integrating within existing traditional urban fabric, and shall make critical recommendations as to the future of architectural development in the core of these cities. This research will investigate the contention that “glocal” urban intervention, coupled with transportation infrastructure, is the future of development of architecture in the core areas of Indian cities.

Arianne Kouri “1959 Exhibition Exchange: The Exhibition Designs of the American and Soviet National Exhibitions” Advisor: Craig Buckley The thesis examines and critiques the American National Exhibition of 1959 with the Soviet Exhibition of the same year. Both the United States and the Soviet Union held major national exhibitions in an effort to lessen tension between the two countries through a cultural exchange— the Soviet Exhibition was held in New York City and opened in June 1959 while the American National Exhibition was held in Moscow and opened one month later in July 1959. Through the

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medium of exhibition design— curating and planning, spatial strategy, circulation, material selection and presentation—an analysis of the political and social implications of both exhibitions can be clearly realized suggesting the potential of the exhibition format as a powerful political stage.

Albert José-Antonio López “Divergent Modernities: Planning in Havana 1940-1960” Advisor: Mary Caroline McLeod. External Consultant: Brian Brace Taylor This body of research explores the divergent conceptualizations of modernity in Cuban society during the period of 1940-1960, and their manifestations in Cuban architectural practice and urban planning. The primary focus of investigation is the national efforts of urban planning, in particular, the organization of the Junta Nacional de Planificación (JNP) in 1955 under the auspices of the Batista government. A critical investigation of this organization seeks to further understand its relations to the official economic and social visions for the island, and how they corresponded and conflicted with contemporary opinions on national development. Insight into the organization, its related bodies, and its key members is provided by extensive investigation of primary resources related to the Cuban architectural and urbanist profession prior to the revolution. The use of official magazines, transcripts from conferences, and personal interviews contextualizes the proposals for architectural and urban modernization by revealing the political and ideological beliefs of the key figures involved in the expansion and planning of the then-rapidly modernizing city. The efforts behind national and urban planning during this period are portrayed as a complex product of conflicting Cuban cultural identities, the growth of Cuban nationalism in the era prior to the revolution, and the influence that North American values and investment had on the development of the Cuban capital’s architectural and urban image. Though this research takes into account all external factors on the path toward national development that were in order prior to the Revolution, it will argue that the motives and decisions were ultimately internal.

Carlos Mínguez Carrasco “CURATORIAL REANIMATIONS: Atlas of New York Architecture Exhibitions (1977-1987)” Advisor: Mark Wasiuta The 1977 opening of Leo Castelli’s group exhibition Architecture I marked the moment at which a New York private art gallery presented works of architecture as art pieces for the first time. The next year, close to Leo Castelli’s gallery, Bernard Tschumi opened in a non-profit organization gallery called Artists Space an exhibition titled Architectural Manifestoes. Those two exhibitions show the genesis of a polarized production of architectural exhibitions in its multiple versions and formats during the late seventies and early eighties.

The final form anticipated for the research is an atlas of the exhibitions of architecture opened in New York from 1977 to 1987. The project has the aspiration of unveiling the crucial importance of the exhibition practice for the theory and the production of architecture during the last 25 years. Specifically the study will be focused on the controversy established in the inception of the discussion: on the one hand the understanding of the documents of architecture as an artistic matter from the art world and art market and on the other hand the architectural field

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absorbing art languages, formats and platforms as part of the discipline.

The result will be a print-based material research in which three principal issues will be addressed: the importance of the institutional role in the controversy; transdisciplinarity versus autonomy in the exhibition realm; and the physical and theoretical space of the gallery as architectural battlefield.

The research is an attempt at understanding the complex and multifaceted relationship between art and architecture and how this connection had a significant turning point in the 1980s in New York City.

Jacob Moore “Other Architectures” Advisor: Ijlal Muzaffar Other Architectures will research and analyze the mechanisms of translation within the architectural discourse. Based on those findings it will propose an apparatus to facilitate improved translation at multiple discursive scales. Beginning with an ethos of texts as always incomplete, the project asks how translation, as a productive reopening of information to shifting geopolitical, multicultural, and socioeconomic terrains, may contribute to a reinvigorated and multifarious exchange in architecture by sparking dialogue around specific, novel, and hitherto unknown contexts that are nevertheless worthy of discussion.

The process will include research of seminal translations within the discipline as well as investigations of more contemporary cases in order to locate problematic junctures that will themselves be relayed into the theoretical and programmatic underpinning for the final format: a peer-driven website which will be forever-influx and provide resources for architectural practitioners and theorists of all types – whether they be sourcing or offering translation services, suggesting texts worthy of translation, or discussing translations in progress. Of primary importance is the establishment of a sustainable base from which Other Architectures may continue to operate long after the thesis has ‘come to an end.’

Victoria Bugge Øye “Performing Architecture: A Theoretical Investigation on the Notion of ‘Performativity’” Advisor: Felicity D. Scott J.L. Austin first used the term ‘performative’ in the mid-1950s as a component of his speech act theory. Since then, the term has mutated at a rapidly increasing speed, especially throughout the 1990s. This has caused scholars such as Erika Fischer-Lichte to expanded on the idea of a ‘performative turn’ in society as a whole, understanding the terms ‘performative’ and ‘performance’ as neither exclusive to language studies nor performance art, but as a new interdisciplinary and societal paradigm.

Various fields and actors have picked up the notion of ‘performativity’ as a subject for attempted deciphering, including architecture. The reiterations of the term in relation to architecture have, however, usually been complicit in reducing performativity to a phenomenological ‘effect’ on the subject/user. This is an approach that re-actualizes the status of the subject in relation to architecture, but that in

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insisting on a trans-historical relationship between the two falls short of any critical investigation of the processes that shape this very subjectivity (and its relationship to architecture) in the first place. A critical response to how performativity translates to architecture is thus still called for.

One of the ambitions of this thesis is thus to identify the various specters of performativity, and how these can be understood in relation to the production and reception of architecture. Trying to rephrase the discourse on ‘performative architecture’ from an insular relation between architecture and user, I will attempt to formulate the parameters through which performativity can be applied as a productive terminology and apparatus for interpretation and analysis in relation to the field of architecture and architectural discourse.

Ismaelly Pena “RE-presentation: Architecture in process…”

Advisor: Mabel O. Wilson “We should have to study not only the history of space, but also the history of representations, along with that of their relationships—with each other, with practice, and with ideology” argued Henri Lefebvre in his seminal book The Production of Space, and it is under such premise, that this investigation takes its foundational stance. In a contemporary society in which we are bombarded with information and visual representations of events such as the war on terror, natural disasters, new state formations, and other such events, the architect has been called upon to be an active participant in the social and political reinvention and “projection” of the world; but how are such “projections” and more often representations, responding to the immediacies of everyday life and represented/re-presented to a public? .The thesis will use as a resource, the four institutions listed below and the mentioned competition/exhibitions/archive and the works that were associated with such, to investigate above mentioned idea of representation in contrast and in conjunction to its re-presentation.

-MOMA: Small Scale Big Change - CCA: ACTION competition and exhibition -Storefront for Art and Architecture: Call for entry- Strategies for Public Occupation -Creative Time-Living as Form: Archive for Socially Engaged Practices The investigation will culminate in the production of an “exhibition”; one that as Robin Evans argues, will aspire to not simply present an expose of the findings of an investigation in the form of “image”, but rather utilize them explore the representational act of the exhibition within the architectural/public/ social space it would appropriate

Fernando Portal “Design Policies: Public Policies and Design Disciplines in the US. The NEA Design Programs, 1967-2012” Advisor: Enrique Walker The research comprises a historic study on the conformation of public support

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structures for design disciplines in the US. It focuses on the processes of formation, development and dismantling of the National Endowment for the Arts, over its 45 years of existence, through the analysis of a series of institutions, programs, organizations and projects related to its different developmental stages and politic administrations.

As conceptual practices of design disciplines inhabit an institutional framework strongly defined by cultural and economic policies, the thesis states that through the historic analysis of support structures for design and architecture, is possible to recognize and characterize different modes in which design and architecture relates with policies and politics.

Furthermore, since the processes of formation, consolidation and dismantling of the NEA design programs express the history of how a Neoliberal State defines and uses policies to support design projects as cultural industries, the research hypothesis states that the study of the American experience on the definition and development of public policies for design is a keystone for the enunciation and implementation of public policies for design in developing countries based on a Neoliberal State.

In order to explore this hypothesis, an historical approach is build towards the development of design programs developed by the public sector in conjunction with private and third sector agents in the US. After its analysis through a series of case studies, the research aims to enunciate a set of models for institutional development. Models intended to be considered in further developments of institutional frameworks, institutions, organizations and programs devoted to the support of design disciplines in Neoliberal States of developing countries.

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2008

2010

GSAPP book report on the pilot Studio-X space.

2012

Latest media report on the Studio-X Global Network.

16.0 Exhibitions

storefront-window exhibition, “Dress Local: Applied Mapping of the Garment Dis2008 2010

CCCPArch, The Fashion Center Business Improvement District and Studio-X present a mixed-media, site-specific exhibition about the Garment District—made with materials from the Garment District—in the Garment District.

expression of the urban mosaic of the neighborhood and the New York fashGSAPP book report on the pilot Studio-X space.

Latest media repo ion industry—as well as a simple sheath dress made entirely from goods found

“Dress Local: Applied Mapping of the Garment District”

By Sarah Cloonan, Pollyanna Rhee, Federica Soletta and Tong Tong (CCCPArch, Columbia University) Opening Thursday May 13, 2010, 6:30pm On display May 13-June 15, 2010 The Fashion Center Space for Public Art 215 W. 38th Street, New York, NY 10018 Four graduate students from the one-year-old Critical, Curatorial, and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCPArch) program at Columbia University present a

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MS.CCCP

trict.” The project uses an applied mapping of fabric, pattern and notions—an

with within the Garment District to highlight the vibrant textural qualities of the neighborhood. Thereby, “Dress Local” examines these qualities at the macroand micro-scale simultaneously. The students have created a blog to document their research and installation process: cccparch.tumblr.com/ The Fashion Center Business Improvement District, a not-for-profit corporation, was established in 1993 to improve the quality of life and economic vitality of Manhattan’s Fashion District. Through programs in the areas of streetscape improvements, sanitation and public safety services, marketing and promotions, economic development, and community service, efforts are aimed at promoting the district as a strategic midtown business location and ensuring New York’s position as the fashion capital of the world. The Masters of Science in Critical, Curatorial and Conceptual Practices in Architecture (CCCPArch) at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University offers advanced training in the fields of architectural criticism, publishing, curating, exhibiting, writing, and research. Studio-X is a downtown studio for experimental design and research run by the GSAPP of Columbia University.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP

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