Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Deadline: Jun 1, 2015

Call for Papers and Projects
Dialectic, a refereed journal of the School of Architecture, CA+P,
University of Utah

Dialectic IV: Architecture at Service?
- A Profession between Luxury Provision, Public Agency and
Counter-Culture

Deadline:
June 1st, 2015

Requirements:
Abstract (350 words)
Short CV

When defining architecture, the debate codified in mid-nineteenth
century as "Architecture: Art or Profession" is far from dead. The
face-off between arts and crafts architects and neo-classicists at
Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) persists on partly similar
and partly modified terms. The emphasis on the primacy of the program,
function, and technological problem solving is still robust; though
there is no consensus among its champions about the addressee of
architectural design. There is little agreement if architecture should
be serving the interests of the client, the users, or the vision of the
architect. Should its primary duty be to the profession, the debates in
the media, or the symbolic client, namely the public at large? The
opponents of this faction, in turn, insist on artistic freedom from
such constraints and call for the autonomy of the discipline.
Art-architects as well as practitioners of architectural history,
aesthetic philosophy, and semiotics dominate this faction. These
questions are highly charged with political and ideological leaning,
full of consequences for teaching, practice, and society, and therefore
in need of dialectical interrogation.

A materialist reading of history frames architecture both as part of
the superstructure (intellectual culture) and the productive base of
the society. Architects are involved in matter-of-fact processes of
production and organization of labor. They have a say in the
distribution of goods, products, and services, and they are complicit
in the reproduction of labor forces. A neo-liberal society could only
create a neo-liberal architecture. There is no room for artistic agency
in this position.

Critical theorists of a slightly different persuasion, however, argue
for a more dialectical relationship between culture and base. They
allow vanguard architecture a degree of agency or semi-autonomy, if you
will. They point to the 'soft critique' of Mies van der Rohe or John
Hejduk, erect the worth of the 'esoteric musings' of Kenzo Tange or
Jeffrey Bawa, and most recently, hold sacred the 'gorilla tactics' of
rebel architects in Israel, the occupied West Bank, Pakistan, Spain,
Nigeria, and elsewhere. These concrete examples create faith in the
possibility of brave comment and critical practice. They enact
meaningful effects in the world beyond representation and artistic
intention, within the stranglehold of existing societal forces.

And then, of course, we are reminded that there might be room for
counter-culture practices within everyday spaces. The literature taught
in architectural schools abounds with theories and practices of
appropriation, poaching, and tactics within the city by the ubiquitous
woman without qualities.

Dialectic IV invites papers with new takes on the long-held proposition
that architects are providers of design services. They service everyone
from the status quo all the way to the subaltern. We know well how
architects have historically fashioned themselves to be able to procure
the most valued building commissions a people have to offer. There are
temples, churches and shrines, palaces and private villas, and surely
monuments, state institutions and corporate headquarters. But how have
the members of the same profession managed to fashion themselves as the
custodians of the public good?

Are the career paths of luxury providers and community supporters
mutually exclusive or mutually beneficial? Does one make the other
possible? How are the careers of community architects and
activist-designers sustained? What about those who traverse these
boundaries? What kind of a dialogue exists or should exist between
agents of the elite, public agents and producers of counter culture? Do
Marxist thinkers regard these as impossible questions?

Architects are also at the service of specific expectations - that of
their peers, academia, and the media. We need to consider the kind of
career choices, aspirations, and skills professional training and
professional bodies (such as AIA, NCARB or RIBA) offer? Historians tell
us that most of the socially and artistically progressive buildings are
historical accidents. Only where the paths of talented architects have
crossed the tracts of "enlightened" affluent clients, have we had
progressive departures from "business as usual." Are progressive-minded
architects operating in the luxury market restricted to mute
representations and subject to the whims of chance?

Following the thematic issues of Dialectic II on architecture and
economy and Dialectic III on design-build, the fourth issue of our
peer-review journal will explore architecture at service - of whom, for
whom, service to what ideals and realized how.

The editors value critical statements and alternative practices. We
hope to include instructive case studies and exciting models for
professional practice. Possible contributions may also include mapping
of ongoing debates across the world, book, journal, exhibition and new
media reviews. Please send abstracts of 350 words and short CVs to Ole
W. Fischer fischer@arch.utah.edu and Shundana Yusaf
shundana@arch.utah.edu by June 1st, 2015.

Accepted authors will be notified by June 15th. Photo essays with 6-8
images and full papers of 2500-3500 words must be submitted by August
15, 2015, (including visual material, endnotes, and permissions for
illustrations) to undergo an external peer-review process. This issue
of Dialectic is expected to be out in print by spring 2016.

DIALECTIC a refereed journal of the School of Architecture, CA+P,
University of Utah
ISSN: 2333-5440 (print)
ISSN: 2333-5459 (electronic)