Architecture and Authorship:
Studies in disciplinary remediation

Call for contributions to an anthology of scholarly essays

Deadline August 26th

The 'Architecture and its Mythologies' research project, based at the
School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, seeks
contributions to an anthology of scholarly essays that will explore how
architects operate historically and in contemporary contexts in relation
to changing paradigms of authorship. Since the 15th century, architects
have staked their claims, defended their territories and maintained their
status through appeals to the logic of authorship. The professional
identity of the architect, articulated through journals, publications and
reviews, is still dominated by the pervasive idea of the architect as
solitary author, creator of inspired and useful artefacts. At the same
time, traditional ideas of architectural authorship are questioned in
much contemporary debate around architecture. In addressing the issue of
authorship, the book joins a growing and significant line of discourse
that has developed recently in relation to contemporary practice
concerning, for example, the significance of technology for architecture,
the nature of the architectural drawing, and the impact of digital
technology, all of which bring questions of architectural authorship into
urgent focus, and which highlight conceptual uncertainties surrounding
the role of the architect and of the designer as authors.

Such uncertainties, it might be argued, are articulated in architectural
practice and in the texts of architectural theorists at critical points
in the history of the discipline. For example, Leon Battista Alberti¹s
construction of the modern architect in De re aedificatoria (c. 1452) and
the emergence of the landscape architect as a distinctly other designer
figure through particular theories and practices of the 18th century
landscape garden each illustrate the theme of authorship in relation to
the traditions of architectural design. Alberti identified the architect
as a semi-divine figure, suggesting that a meaningful authorial relation
can be established between architect and building; yet he denied the
architect any final control over the act of building. Negotiating this
ambiguity in relation to authorship becomes critical in Alberti¹s
definition of the architect. The emergence of the landscape architect in
the 18th century challenged and transformed inherited architectural
thinking about authorship in particular ways: for example, original
authorship is now attributed to nature, and the designer is understood to
interpret and enhance the existing on-site effects - a mode of operation
that demands a new set of conceptual tools. Today, at a time of rapid
technological change, another critical point may have arrived.
Contemporary definitions (affirmations, dislocations, translations,
dissolutions) that arise in architectural and design discourse frequently
question established conventions of authorship through adopting
collaborative, cybernetic, hybrid, open source, transgenic or emergence
paradigms.

Contributions, which should be between 3500 and 5000 words in length,
might include case studies, historiographical investigations or critical-
theoretical analyses which examine how the concept of authorship has
historically informed the architectural profession, or explore related
concepts such as origin, intention, the ethics of signature, contract,
authority, intellectual property or oeuvre. The anthology will be
structured around four themed sections - affirmation, dislocation,
translation, and dissolution:

1. Affirmation This section includes essays that bring forth and
critically discuss different kinds of affirmative discourses and
practices of authorship in architecture. What kinds of strategies have
architects used to sustain the idea of authorial control? How has the
idea of authorship been incorporated in architectural treatises and
manifestoes? What role does art and architectural history play in the
processes of reaffirming the image of the architect as author?

2. Dislocation This section includes essays that bring forth and
critically discuss different kinds of dislocating discourses and
practices of authorship in architecture. In what ways and for what
purposes have notions of authorial control in architecture been
challenged from within the profession? Could it be claimed that by
steering away from, or by subtly dislocating, the idea of the architect
as author, new possibilities create a space for outsiders as well as
marginalized members of the professional community to operate as
designers? How have such efforts been received and retrieved in
architectural criticism and history?

3. Translation This section includes essays that bring forth and
critically discuss moments of translation, or transference, between
architecture and other forms of creative and critical discourse that
affect ideas of architectural authorship. How has the discipline of
architecture (re)defined itself through the adaptation of terms from
other disciplines? What specific kinds of authorial relations or
operational modes give rise to different ideas of what it is that
constitutes an architect? How have such definitions appropriated
discourses, technologies, and perspectives from other forms of practice?

4. Dissolution This section includes essays that bring forth and
critically discuss architectural and design discourses that actively
promote a creative dissolution, or rejection, of authorship in
architecture. Where do we find examples of radically different and new
architectural ideas arising from a loosened attention to, or rejection
of, authorial control? What is the significance for architects of the
shift from linear, deterministic communications to interactive, non-
linear, complex, networked and 'emergent' communications? If techno-
scientific paradigms have changed from the hard mechanical sciences of
the early twentieth century to the 'soft' biological sciences (and
informatics technologies) of the early twenty-first century, how has this
affected the status of human perception and individual creativity as the
core evaluating criteria for authentic work?

Interdisciplinary contributions are welcomed. Potential contributors
should send an abstract proposal of 300 words to Dr. Rolf Hughes at the
address below by 26th August 2005. Abstracts will be reviewed and a
shortlist of contributors approached by 22nd September 2005.

The anthology theme draws upon the Terms of Engagement session, held at
the Society of Architectural Historians annual meeting 2005, and on the
body of research under development by Tim Anstey, Katja Grillner and Rolf
Hughes in the research project "Architecture and its Mythologies:
Authorship, Judgment and Representation"

Deadline for abstracts: 26th August 2005 Please send proposals to:
rolf.hughesarch.kth.se (as a Word or Adobe PDF attachment) Or hard-copy
to: Dr. Rolf Hughes, School of Architecture, KTH Royal Institute of
Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden. Phone: +46 8 790 8769.

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