Architecture Open Lecture Series 2010 /11
- University of Greenwich
- School of Architecture & Construction
- Mansion Site, Avery Hill Campus
- Bexley Road, Eltham, London SE9 2PQ
- Norbert Singer Lecture Theatre (M055)
Wed 3 November 2010 17.00
Braden Engel
URBAN AESTHETICS: QUESTIONS OF SCALE, OBJECTIVITY & PERFORMANCE
A friend of mine once said to me,
“I hate it when it rains in London – everything slows down.”
How wonderful, I thought.
Already a notoriously nebulous topic in architecture and urbanism, “aesthetic experience” is not always easy to talk about. Smaller artefacts tend to be more manageable, such as paintings and sculptures. But at the scale of the city things become more difficult – or fragmented, at least, into a blur of multisensory perception. Other non‐objective arts like music, theatre and dance suddenly become more relevant; for if there ever was an experience analogous to a grand accumulation of all forms of aesthetic experience, it would be that of the modern city.
The lecture will consider various drawings, paintings, works of landscape art, architecture and urban experiences in relation to theories of “the event” and “performance” to ultimately question whether there is or can be such a discourse on Urban Aesthetics. From the frantically precise drawings of Daniel Libeskind to the crippling perspectival paintings of Zaha Hadid; the massive landscape projects of Christo, excavations of Gordon Matta‐Clark and installations by Olafur Eliasson; from children playing on Holocaust memorials to Aldo van Eyck’s playgrounds – one begins to wonder whether the blur of the city is really passively observed as much as it is performed by each one of us. And if so, how do our designs allow for beautiful events?
Braden Engel studied Architecture and Philosophy (North Dakota State University), and Architecture History and Theory (Architectural Association, London), which he teaches at the University of Greenwich and the Architectural Association. Primary interests include the relationship between aesthetic experience and epistemology in art and architecture.
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