Olaf Grawert

Olaf Grawert plans, writes and talks about architecture. He lives and works between Berlin and Zurich. Since 2015 in alternating collaborations with ARCH+ Zeitschrift für Architektur und Urbanismus, Brandlhuber+, MakeCity Berlin, Christopher Roth and many others. In his work he deals with the economization and marketing of space and possible strategies for the re-popularization of architecture. Together with Arno Brandlhuber and Christopher Roth he worked on the films The Property Drama (2017) and Architecting after Politics (2018) as well as the touring exhibition Legislating Architecture – Architecting after Politics, which premiered at the VAI Dornbirn in autumn 2018 and since then is traveling through Europe. Grawert was a guest lecturer and speaker at various universities and colleges, including the Joint Master of Architecture Suisse, the Accademia di Architettura Mendrisio, the Hong Kong School of Architecture and the TU Vienna. Since 2017, he has been a research assistant at ETH Zurich, where he has set up and operated the architecture online TV station+ together with Arno Brandlhuber and Christopher Roth.

Architecture as Argument

Conference
Date: Day 2 – 11:45
Location: Notenbank, Weimar
Language: German

The balance of power in our cities is changing. What is already normal in the metropolises of North America and Southeast Asia is also becoming our reality: private agents taking over responsibilities that used to be public. This shift from public to private affects all areas of life, including architecture. Models such as “PPP – Public Private Partnerships” or “POPS – Privately Owned Public Spaces” think and understand architecture and the city as a resource in the process of a complete commercialization of our (built) environment. This commodification, the “becoming-commodity” of our living environment, culminates in the new smart city projects of large technology companies from the US and China: where the boundaries between private and public, city and nature, productivity and idleness, disappear completely and architects no longer play a role in the design of space. What conclusions can architects draw from this new reality and what could be proactive answers between theory and practice, teaching and everyday life? What spaces and possibilities for action can architects claim and assert for themselves? And how can architecture become an argument beyond being a built object?

Under the patronage of

Deutsche UNESCO Kommission

Supported by

Thüringen

Organized by

Media and event partners

BauNetz
Bauwelt
Brandeins
kulturaustausch
taz