Situating Architecture Lecture Series

The Situating Architecture lecture series is open to all, but especially to postgraduate students. The series showcases the latest research of leading architectural scholars and has a particular focus on applying new and diverse methodologies and critical theories to architecture and cities. Each talk offers timely, exciting historical, theoretical and critical interpretations of architecture, cities, urban spaces, creative practices and their representations. 

This series is curated by the Architectural History MA Programme Directors; Professor Barbara Penner and Dr Robin Wilson. 

All lectures will take place in Room 6.02 at The Bartlett School of Architecture unless stated otherwise in the dropdown below. Please feel welcome to bring your lunch along with you. 

Image: Kyiv Crematorium, photo by Olena Saponova

Schedule

21 October | 13:00 | Mario Carpo 

Every Dataset is a Canon: Generative AI and the (unexpected) Return of Imitation and Styles

Generative AI does not create new images out of thin air; it generates images that have a “certain something” in common with a selection of images we have fed into it.  This selection, often called a “dataset,” can be generic or custom-made; either way, Generative AI automates the imitation and replication of some of its common visual features, often known in the past as styles.  Imitation was for centuries the backbone of the classical tradition in European art, and it was de facto banned by 20th-century modernism for many good reasons.  As the rise of Generative AI is bringing the practice of imitation back to our design schools and to the design professions, we urgently need to learn again what imitation is, how it works, what it does, and how we can deal with it today, in critical and creative terms.  Every dataset is a canon, but every reference to precedent is based on preference, and we know all too well that preference is often a proxy for prejudice.

Speaker

Mario Carpo, is an architectural historian and critic, and is currently the inaugural Reyner Banham Professor of Architectural History and Theory at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Prof. Carpo's research and publications focus on the history of early modern architecture and on the theory and criticism of contemporary design and technology.  His most recent book is Beyond Digital: Design and Automation at the End of Modernity, published by the MIT Press.  

11 November | 13:00 | Ievgeniia Gubkina

Attempting to Understand Socialist Architecture and the Built Environment: Experiments, Methods, and Tools

Interpretations of socialist heritage are often limited or one-dimensional. A more nuanced, critical analysis demands an expansion of methods, knowledge, and interdisciplinary approaches. In this talk, Jenia Gubkina will share insights from her academic and activist work, showcasing the interdisciplinary methodology she applies across various architectural, artistic, and educational projects. This approach allows her to unearth deeper social, political, and historical narratives through the lens of architecture and the built environment, with a particular emphasis on the tools and perspectives she employs. As part of the lecture, there will be a screening of the short documentary You See, Time Becomes Space Here. Filmed before the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, the documentary was created within the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Architecture multimedia project. Directed by Tetjana Kononenko in collaboration with architectural historian Jenia Gubkina, the film reflects on the intersection of power, personal experience, and microhistory within the urban landscape. The documentary centres on Kharkiv’s Svobody Square, a monumental modernist urban planning project from the 1920s–1930s, highlighted by its main feature, the Derzhprom (House of State Industry) – the first Soviet skyscraper, constructed between 1925 and 1928, in what was then the capital of Soviet Ukraine.

Speaker

Ievgeniia 'Jenia' Gubkina is a Ukrainian architect, architectural and urban historian, and curator, with a focus on 20th-century architecture and urban planning in Ukraine. Her work takes an interdisciplinary approach to heritage studies. In 2014, she co-founded the NGO Urban Forms Center, a leading organisation in Ukraine dedicated to the study and promotion of modernist heritage, addressing gender issues in architecture, and exploring experimental approaches in architectural education. In 2020–2021, Jenia curated the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Architecture, an online multimedia project that blended architecture, history, documentary, and visual arts. She authored four books, such as Slavutych: Architectural Guide (2015) and Soviet Modernism. Brutalism. Post-Modernism. Buildings and Structures in Ukraine, 1955–1991 (2019). Jenia's most recent book, Being a Ukrainian Architect During Wartime, was released in 2023, offering insights into her experiences against the backdrop of the war. She is a tutor and lecturer at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

25 November | 13:00 | Danielle Hewitt | Being held in Christopher Ingold Ramsay LT G21 

Not a History of Reconstruction: Tracing the Erratic Movements of London's Bombed Landscape from 1940: Reflections on Artistic and Historiographical Research 

During the aerial bombardment of London in the years 1940 to 1945 at least 116,483 buildings were ‘totally demolished’ by bombing or otherwise ‘damaged beyond repair’. Many millions of tonnes of debris were cleared from London’s bombed landscape during these years representing a massive processing and movement of materials. This talk will reflect on recent research into this and other ‘erratic’ movements that can be traced from London’s bombed landscape through a focus on various ways that it was measured and quantified, and the role that this landscape took in the formation of new knowledges; including new militarised knowledge.

A great deal of work in architectural history has focused on the rebuilding and reconstruction of British cities, particularly London, following 1945. Prompted by the thinking of Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, working in the field of visual cultures, this work aims to shift focus away from the historian’s construction of the ‘postwar’, suggesting as it does that ‘war’ ended in 1945. The talk will share and reflect on an artistically driven process of historiographical practice that occurs through archival and site research and an expanded photographic practice. An aim of this practice being to think through the temporalities that historical narratives are built upon, and their relationships to the present.

Speaker

Danielle Hewitt is an artist and historian, trained in both Fine Art Practice and Architectural History. She recently completed a PhD in Architectural History at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL supported by The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. Danielle teaches Landscape Architecture MA/MLA and Architectural and Interdisciplinary Studies BSc at The Bartlett. She is also a Senior Lecturer at London Metropolitan University where she teaches across Art, Architecture and Photography. 

*Note, in Christopher Ingold Ramsay Lecture Theatre G21 – this is a lecture theatre right next door in 20 Gordon Street

2 December | 13:00 | Holly Smith 

Community Architecture Between Left and Right in Post-War Britain

This lecture explores the politically mercurial history of Britain’s post-war community architecture movement, which called for more participatory approaches to architectural practice and town planning. It gathered momentum across multiple spheres: in grassroots projects; student culture; the underground and mainstream press; architects’ offices; trade unions; the monarchy; The Royal Institute of British Architects; and within the ministerial organs of central government. Holly’s talk will trace the curious migration of the community architecture movement’s arguments, from their emergence in leftist counter-culture in the 1960s and 1970s to their redeployment by figures on the right by the 1980s.

Speaker

Holly Smith is an urban historian and Fellow of St John’s College at the University of Cambridge. She was previously a Wolfson Scholar during her doctorate at University College London. Her first book, Up in the Air: A History of High-Rise Britain, is being published by Verso next year.