Call for Papers: The Right to the City

The Right to The City is an exhibition and publishing project exploring
connections between architecture, art, philosophy and action; cosponsored by
Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney and Architectural Theory
Review. The Right to the City special issue will bring together papers that
particularly consider architecture¹s potential for reimagining urban life
(to be published as Volume 16, Number 3, November 2011).

The Right to the City takes as its starting point David Harvey¹s polemical
article that asserted urban existence as a contested part of modern
democracy: "The freedom to make and remake our cities and ourselves is, I
want to argue, one of the most precious yet most neglected of our human
rights". Given widespread, acute anxiety regarding our environmental
predicament, coupled with attention to the world¹s intensifying
urbanisation, many artists, activists, planners and architects are seeking
ways to "remake" the city in more socially connected and sustainable ways.
These activities are often engaged with negotiating the increasing
fragmentation and complexity of the contemporary city; developing critical
spatial practices that engage in micro-political actions.

Architecture as a Social Catalyst
Recent decades have seen the emergence of a renewed sense of commitment by
many architects to the idea of socially responsible architecture; what might
be termed "engaged practice". This commitment is frequently directed toward
small-scale approaches of direct engagement, where the focus is on
collaboration with clients and users to create community resources. Although
this emphasis on collaboration and participation is familiar from socially
engaged movements of the past, the architects are often at pains to distance
themselves from grand manifestos or utopian theories. Rather than model
design solutions addressed at a unified social entity the projects (often
temporary) are highly contingent and beholden to their specific contexts. A
shift in attitude might be discerned, where a broad "utopian" agenda is set
aside for provisional solutions in the here and now ­ a commitment to a
"radical pragmatism" attentive to the possibilities of addition,
transformation and utilisation more than demolition, subtraction or
replacement.
At the same time, this engaged turn in architecture frequently intersects
with a contemporary convergence of site-specific, installation, community
and public art, and political activism. Such practices ­ given terms such as
"context-specific", "site-oriented", "site-responsive" or "socially-engaged"
­ often have a discernable emphasis on "microtopic" urban interventions.
Adopting do-it-yourself (and design-it-yourself) approaches, temporary
constructions, and the material organization of communicative situations,
they overlap with engaged architectural practices in their concern for
modeling alternative ways of communally inhabiting the city. They also share
an emphasis on dialogical relationships through design processes that
privilege working with others: interactive activities, collective action and
participatory practices. Contingent, interactive, place specific, models of
possible universes; they strive to imagine and invent positive social
relations and better ways of dwelling in the world.
With these tendencies and convergences in mind, we invite papers that
explore architecture¹s contemporary role and potential for urban
intervention - its capacity for transformative action. With reference to the
above, we are particularly keen to receive submissions that reflect on:

- Architecture¹s agency in the city;
- Alternative or expanded models for architectural practice;
- Intersections of architecture, art and activism;
- The limits of participation and collaboration in engaged
architectural practice.

Completed manuscripts should be submitted to Architectural Theory Review by
the 3rd of May, 2011, via the journal¹s website:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13264826.asp

Queries regarding the special issue or The Right to the City project should
be directed to Lee Stickells: Lee.Stickellssydney.edu.au

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