The Centre for Research Architecture offers graduate students the opportunity to work at the cutting edge of new research paradigms that bring space, politics, media, law, human rights, and art into productive tension with each other. It sets out to question the two separate terms that constitute its name seeking to open up the discipline and praxis of ‘architecture’—understood as the production of rarefied buildings and urban structures—into a shifting network of ‘spatial practices’ that includes many other forms of intervention. It contests the utilitarian, applied, means-to-ends relation between knowledge and action that is evoked by the term ‘research’ and the artificial opposition between theory and practice it implies. The centre’s mode of operation draws on the vocabularies of urbanism, architecture, environmental studies, science, aesthetics, and philosophy in order to develop spatial practices into an open-ended form of critical inquiry.
Projects related to the Centre:
Barbican Salon: Centre for Research Architecture
Mengele’s Skull: The Advent of a Forensic Aesthetics
Vera List Center for Art and Politics presents Forensic Aesthetics: Two Day Forum
Public Workshop with Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann
The MA programme has been developed to allow members to combine theoretical inquiry with critical spatial production. Lectures, seminars, and workshops equip members with a rigorous grounding in spatial theory. The theoretical course provides a thorough coverage of the historical, philosophical, and technological aspects of the intersection of space, power, and conflict. As with our world-renowned MPhil / PhD track, our MA programme draws a multidisciplinary mix of innovative architects and other spatial practitioners, albeit in the early stages of their careers.
Recent Guests and Crit Members
Michel Agier, Graham Harman, Derek Gregory, Teddy Cruz, Thomas Keenan, Renzo Martens, Alice Creischer, Peter Hallward, Fareed Armaly, Ursula Biemann, Hito Steyerl, Grupa Spomenik, China Mieville, Sina Najafi, Irit Rogoff, Alberto Toscano, Boris Buden, Stefano Harney, Gilles Peress, Ewa Domonska, Steve Goodman, Sandro Mezzadra, Maurizio Lazzarato, and more.
Centre Team
John Palmesino, Studio Seminar Convener
Adrian Lahoud, MA Coordinator, Conflicts & Negotiations Convener
Andy Lowe, Lecturer
Susan Schuppli, Senior Research Fellow – Forensic Architecture Project
Paulo Tavares, Tutor
Eyal Weizman, Centre Director
Research Fellows
Ayesha Hameed, Alessandro Petti, Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss, Thomas Keenan, Anselm Franke, John Palmesino
Call for applications for the 2011-MA Programme are open until the end of July www.gold.ac.uk/pg/apply
Additional Information
www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/architecture
www.mara-stream.org
Research Project: Forensic Architecture
www.forensic-architecture.org
Academic Environment
The Centre for Research Architecture is part of the Department of Visual Cultures, a culturally diverse and intellectually challenging environment for exploring and producing new forms of contemporary art and theoretical practices. The department is well known for its experimental and innovative engagement in the field of visual culture and more broadly within a framework of critical theory, philosophy, and cultural studies. Included are issues of cultural difference, performativity, visual display, aurality, encounters with audiences, spatial practices and the production of subjectivities. As a member of the MA in RA, you will have the opportunity to participate in a weekly lecture programmes, workshops, and other activities organized by the department.
www.gold.ac.uk/visual-cultures
How to apply:
Taught programmes usually start in late September. Places in the MA in Research Architecture are very competitive. They are not limited to graduates of architecture, but open to a range of other disciplines provided that you have, or expect to gain, an undergraduate degree of at least second-class standard. A good portfolio of practical and/or scholarly work and a demonstrable interest in critical spatial practices, are essential.
Home/EU applicants
tel +44 (0)20 7078 5300
tel +44 (0)20 7919 7537 (24 hours)
e-mail [email protected]
International (non-EU) applicants
tel +44 (0)20 7919 7702
tel +44 (0)20 7919 7273 (24 hours)
e-mail [email protected]