Architectural historians have taken a critical stance in recent years to systematically interrogate the intertwined relations between architecture and spatial forms of violence. They started to pay more attention to the ‘dark sides’ of architectural modernity and the inequities enmeshed in the built environment, its forms, and institutions. By introducing feminist, queer, anti-racist, and decolonial perspectives they seek to undermine the disciplinary boundaries, theoretical and methodological frameworks to uncover silenced voices, and diverse archives. These efforts are challenging what we think we know leading to the development of alternative architectural histories while rethinking the historical production of knowledge in the curriculum itself. Are these noticeable shifts in architectural historiography reflected also in current design pedagogies, and how? In what ways has the dominant design-studio culture changed under the growing presence of critical theory in architectural schools, and in turn, have design-based approaches inspired architectural historians’ efforts to shape counter-archives, situated perspectives, and alternative forms of knowledge production? Or more importantly, what tools does design have to offer for the ‘oppressed’ and the ‘subaltern’ to speak their history in its own right?

We approach these questions drawing on this Interest Group’s interrogation of epistemic violence in narrating histories. In this event, we aim to expand on the Group’s earlier activities that focused on spaces/cities of conflict where both the work of historians and designers are destabilized by entrenched violence, asymmetries of power, social and territorial divisions, and contestations over the past and the future. We aim to discuss and reflect on the relations between historical research and design pedagogies addressing and expanding on the following topics:

• Can design tools support historical research to overcome limitations of archives and other silencing effects advanced by the discipline itself?
• Can design help produce new archives and histories based on multiple epicenters of power instead of privileging one-sided or hegemonic narratives of conflicts?  
• Can design studio approaches be shaped in relation to silenced voices and what does such a goal mean for historical education and the role of architectural history and historians in design teaching?
• What can alternative design and spatial practices developed under the saturating/paralyzing effects of conflict, colonialism, and violence offer to historical research and design education?

We invite participants to contribute to this discussion by sharing first-hand reflections on their own experience from studying and/or teaching on spatial histories of conflict. We welcome 10min presentations of short and critical positions in different formats, including but not limited to:

• Short lectures participants’ offer in their own studio teaching
• Modes of drawing/mapping/representation they teach the studio
• Methods of historical research that would be incorporated into a studio setting
• Field notes from trips they undertook with studio students
• Alternative ways of conducting studio reviews, and thoughts on the profile of guest critics they would invite in studio reviews
• Design exercises, they would give in a history class
• Reflections on the challenges/pressures of revisiting history/theory or design course curricula

We aspire for this event to lead to the formulation of a design/history syllabus/toolkit. By offering tools and perspectives in the form of a syllabus/toolkit, this event seeks to help architectural researchers, historians, and design studio teachers in challenging the disempowering, invisibilizing, and paralyzing effects of the past and present of spatial violence and conflict.

Date/time: Wednesday 15 June 2022, 15:30-18:30

Event chairs and organizers:
Petros Phokaides and Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat

Group coordinators:
Alona-Nitzan Shiftan, Panayiota Pyla, Fatina Abreek-Zubiedat, Petros Phokaides