The following series of quotes have been culled from various practical and administrative documents pertaining to ‘ARK380 Material theory of architecture’, as the course is formally called. Proceeding in chronological order, we begin with the description of the very first installment of the course in 2009, before the study trip had become its main feature:

The course deals with architectural theory in a material context, who the architect is read from our material culture and the history of architecture elucidated by developments in science and technology. The interplay between systematic reflection and built practice help us to see fundamental patterns and acquire a deeper understanding. It is as if matter itself tries to teach us something.

Next, a passage from the invitation to the students, also from 2009:

Architecture is tangible. We reach for the brass handle – it feels comfortable cool – and push the massive door. We experience the steep raise of the steps and are drawn toward the large window where the light of the sun penetrates the wall. The air is dry and warm and we smell the fragrant wooden planks on the floor that reverberate the swift steps of our feet while we hurry across the room.

Yet, architecture is also about imagining. We can think architecture never built nor experienced. We might even share our imagination in writing, like Calvino did in his book Invisible Cities. Or we might draw impossible structures defying gravity as Tatlin did when he designed his 400-meter high spiral tower in the early 1920s.

Furthermore, architecture provides words and notions for thinking. When Heidegger wrote his philosophical essay Bauen, Wohen, Denken his intent was to sharpen the theory of phenomenology. However, his words came from architecture.

Abstract words are often metaphors of the tangible. Words that refer to a world of the real things we surround our everyday life with. By linking the words and notions to things we have experienced intimately, they become containers of a rich and diverted content full of meaning and purpose.

Then an excerpt from the 2012 invitation:

The name of the course places architecture between the world of theory and the material. One could say that the work of the architect is about bridging the gap between the idea and its materialization, between the sign and what it signifies. The means to this end is representation in drawing, model or text. The bridging or translation occurs in both directions, in the creation of architecture from idea to materiality and in our interpretation of the built environment from materiality to idea.

But theory can also be said to have a material point of departure. It is our intention to foster a material culture at the School [of Architecture], but that presupposes a theoretical consciousness. In a series of seminars, we discuss texts that contribute in different ways to a deepening of this complex of problems, which we all too often take for granted in the architect’s practice. We read and converse and we invite guests who can provide us with new perspectives on the question. The course is concluded by a five-day trip to Paris in the footsteps of the flâneurs. We link up with a long tradition among architects of sketching and writing observations of everyday events and of the ‘architettura minore’ of public urban space. The constant sketching is an exercise in attention.

And from the invitation of 2014, where the lapidary tone can perhaps be taken as an indication that the course had by now found its definitive form:

Why Material theory of architecture?
Materiality and representation
Art and science
Walking as aesthetic practice
To partake of and describe the city

Lastly, from the 2015 invitation:

(MAT [an abbreviation for “Materiell arkitekturteori”, the Swedish name for the course] = food for thought [“mat” is also the Swedish word for ‘food’])

[…] the course is first and foremost a journey over the borders of architecture, to teach ourselves how to build more freely, more poetically.

Want more? Have a look at the prospect for 2016.