During the Fall 2021 term, four tasks were assigned to students: they were given select readings and, working in groups, were required to submit a short written document summarizing the position of the readings’ author(s) and the main aim of the text, highlighting the relations between the latter and the research questions addressed in the seminar; they were assigned texts related to the three lectures of September 29th — by Jiawen Han (Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University), Plácido González (Tongji University) and Tao Shu (University of Hong Kong) — and asked to prepare questions for the lecturers; they were required to identify one emerging transnational architectural office whose activity (consisting of both projects and realized buildings) is located in at least two countries or continents; in addition, they were asked to summarize the office’s profile, highlight the relation between its activity and the questions addressed by the research seminar, and map the global connections within the network of emergent transnational architectural offices, tracing their links around the world; they were asked to produce a critical dialogue, at distance and a posteriori, with the participants to the Symposium “Affirming Actions”, which was held at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) on May 29th, 2021, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Rolex Learning Centre. Organized by Professor Paolo Tombesi, the event involved fifteen women architects: the format was based on a series of 60-minute thematic discussions between two architects. Each discussion was structured around a topic, chosen as an opportunity for the invited guests to articulate some of the aspects informing their architectural positions. Finally, students were asked to form groups, based on the convergence of research interests, and work on the preparation of posters illustrating a research question related to the seminars’ topics. Accompanied by maps, graphs, photographs, drawings, plans, and text references, as well as featuring keywords, the posters were publicly displayed during a session held on November 11th.
About the seminars
The seminars The Global Architect are taught within the Architecture and Urban Design MSc program by Gaia Caramellino, Pierre-Alain Croset, Christian Gänshirt, and Paolo Scrivano. They intend to provide support for students enrolled in the Master’s Program “Architecture and Urban Design”in the elaboration of their final theses. The seminars are led in collaboration with the course “History of Architecture and Urbanism” at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen’s Expertise Center Architecture, Urbanism and Health, under the direction of Cor Wagenaar.