Call for Papers Deadline:
2004-06-15

Conference: Architecture and Identity - The Construction of Cultural Identity
in Contemporary Architecture.

Date: December 6-8, 2004
Venue: House of World Cultures, Berlin, Germany

An international conference on the making of cultural identity in
contemporary architecture, to take place from 6-8 December 2004 in Berlin, is
currently being organized by the HABITAT UNIT at Berlin University of
Technology. The conference aims at revealing the mechanisms of constructing
the "own" and the "foreign" through architecture in an international, global
context. It concludes an international research project exploring the recent
discourse on cultural identity in architecture in the South. The conference
will present the results of regional studies prepared in the research project
and discuss them in a wider geographic and thematic context. Regions covered
by our research partners include India (Rahul Mehrotra), the United Arab
Emirates (Dr. Nadia Mehdi Alhasani), Brazil (Dr. Ruth Verde Zein), Mexico
(Susanne Dussel) and Singapore (William Lim). It is intended to place the
ongoing regional discourses in an international and interdisciplinary
perspective by inviting contributions from various disciplines and from a
wide range of geographical regions.

Day one of the conference will present the results of the year-long
international research project. Day two will consist of panel discussions
with contributions from a variety of disciplines (including, but not limited
to architecture, history, sociology, anthropology and art history) and
regions beyond those of the research project in parallel discussion groups.
Day three will be dedicated to drawing conclusions from the discussion groups
of the previous days.

We kindly ask for contributions (maximum 20 minutes reading time) to the
panel discussions on day two. Please attribute your paper to one of the main
themes addressed by the panels:

* The making of local identity.
This panel will focus on the question of how local identity is currently
being made. It will reflect on the mechanisms, tools, actors, the media
involved as well as the role of history. It will also explore trans-cultural
injections of ideas and stereotypes.

* The global and the local.
This panel will deal with the impact of globalization on local architecture
and related discourses. It will examine the emergence of "localisms" as a
reaction to the globalization of cultural values, uniform architectural
styles and stereotype patterns of space and form.

* Theoretical concepts - revisited.
This panel will discuss the validity of concepts that have been developed
over the past 20 years to explain contemporary phenomena in architecture.
References include but are not limited to "critical regionalism", "reflexive
modernization" and "hybridity" and their meaning for the current
architectural debate.

* Diversity as a pattern of local architecture.
This group will focus on the diversification of styles and architectural
languages that has been observed in our regional studies and will further
elaborate on the theoretical as well as practical implications of this trend.
Contributions related both to theory and architectural practice are welcome.
Conference language is English. Abstracts of no more than 500 words and a
one-page CV should be submitted before June 15, 2004.

Conference Papers
HABITAT UNIT
A 53
TU Berlin
Strasse des 17. Juni 135
10623 Berlin
Germany
Email: info@architecture-identity.de
Visit the website at http://www.architecture-identity.de