Claes Caldenby on the latest installment of the course:

We would like to think that the fine arts and humanities are important to architects. The reactions to the Material theory of architecture course are an indication of that. At best, we have contributed to keeping alive a desire for making this connection without even asking oneself the question of what use it might be. The notion that reflecting professionals need an education [bildning] in what has been called the liberal arts or core curriculum, that is, philosophy, humanities, fine arts, has been put forth in several quarters. There is no reason to believe that it would be less important for architects than for economists or lawyers.

Of course, the thought of an educational core relates to the concept of canon. And thereby also to the risks of museumification. […] Is it possible to take in the many canonized icons of architecture and still maintain a critical view?

We choose to take on that challenge. For our fifth trip, in 2016, the Material theory of architecture course is extended into a biennial course. The Venice Biennale is the single most important architectural event in the world. It has not had much of a presence within the architecture education at Chalmers, perhaps, to some extent, on account of a not entirely unwarranted skepticism towards the international architectural establishment. This time around, we thought that we would devote the course and the study trip to Venice and explore both the city and its large architecture exhibition.

This is made easier by the fact that the critical perspective is already built into the theme of this year’s architecture biennial. The curator of the Biennale is the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. Known for projects in Chile that aim for social and ecological sustainability, the theme that he has proposed is “Reporting from the front.” The military analogy is about conquering new areas for a decent life environment: “We would like to understand what design tools are needed to subvert the forces that privilege the individual gain over the collective benefit, reducing We to just Me. We would like to know about cases that resist reductionism and oversimplification and do not give up architecture’s mission to penetrate the mystery of the human condition.” In 2016, Aravena was also awarded the “Nobel Prize” of architecture, the Pritzker Prize. The motivation of the jury expresses a sort of perspective shift: “Alejandro Aravena epitomizes the revival of a more socially engaged architect, especially in his long-term commitment to tackling the global housing crisis and fighting for a better urban environment for all.”

To [convince] those who remain skeptical towards the canon and icons of the establishment, no matter how allegedly engaged, one could try using a phrase from Bengt Kristensson Uggla. It is drawn from an argument about how to preserve a living thing, such as an old, cultivated landscape. Or cultivation [bildning]. He presents his point of view on the concept of a canon in the form of ten theses. The first one reads: “The canon is always already there.” We never start from scratch. Our thinking always presupposes some kind of canon. The tenth and last thesis reads: “We do not need a fixed canon, but rather a continuing discussion of the canon.” A democratic society is a society without a canon, he contends, but it still needs a running conversation about what is regarded as normative and obligatory.

From an essay on Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul, published in a recent issue of the journal Arche. A longer excerpt from the same essay provides a retrospective view of the course.