Are we architects? — Bart Lootsma

The Faculty of Architecture at the Brno University of Technology, in cooperation with the Brno Gallery of Architecture, the Student Organization of the Faculty of Architecture and the VI PER gallery in Prague, cordially invites you to attend a lecture “The Practice of Theory, between History, Criticism and Speculation” held by a historian, theoretician and critic Bart Lootsma which is part of the lecture series “Are we architects? On Educational, Architectural Profession and Institutional Critique”.
BART LOOTSMA: THE PRACTICE OF THEORY, BETWEEN HISTORY, CRITICISM AND SPECULATION
The architectural theory has a long tradition, which in Europe goes back at least to Vitruvius, who lived in the first century BC. Although music theory has an even longer history in Europe, dating back to the ancient Greeks, theory and practice did not meet until the Middle Ages. The architectural theory had practical relevance from the very beginning. Because of its long, well-documented history, the architectural theory is still predominantly Eurocentric. We know there is a tradition in Japan, but we know too little about that. Over the last decades, the theory produced in American universities has growing importance. In the context of globalisation and especially the Internet, the architectural theory is slowly but surely becoming a global practice. This has to do with the global spread of images, texts, and moving content in global web platforms like ArchDaily and Dezeen, with amounts of visitors that were unthinkable until recently, but also with technological developments. This has changed the relationship between design and production, as in CAD-CAM and particularly through robotics, but also between building and organisation. What can the European theory, with strong focus on housing and urbanism for all in the last hundred years, contribute to this development?