Undisciplined is concerned with questions of the transformative effects of crisis in architecture as a discipline. This concern is addressed through the critical examination of a hybrid body of practice-based work, which, although founded on the discipline of architecture, results from its contingent amalgamation with other fields, including contemporary art, politics, and theory. The book reflects on projects developed in contexts of profound sociopolitical instability (i.e., corruption, violence, poverty, and exile), including informal settlements in Venezuela that provide the background to the discussion of projects undertaken elsewhere. In this process, the book interrogates the volatility of the crisis refrain, articulating a framework to propose an undisciplined form of architectural and spatial practice.
This framework not only advocates for working across different fields, but also, for practicing rebelliously and nomadically. To practice rebelliously is to exercise the practice of architecture as an act of resistance. In other words, it is to engage with the problem of space from a skeptical point of view, defying architecture’s entrenched structures of power and questioning its notions of authority, expertise, and specialization. Likewise, to practice nomadically suggests the condition of being constantly on the move, not only physically but also intellectually. It is the quality of practicing architecture as anything but as an architectural expert, drawing from experience working in overlooked social and cultural contexts, and infiltrating disciplinary fields located in its periphery.
As such, Undisciplined questions pre-established disciplinary categories and develops unorthodox methodologies that facilitate the construction of new and increasingly necessary architectural narratives. The book provides examples of such narratives, including speculative and realized projects that illustrate this claim. These examples also provide evidence of how an undisciplined approach is necessary, especially in times when the precepts established by architecture’s intelligentsia and some of its associated structures of disciplinary control need to be questioned and challenged.
Architecture is a disciplined and conservative domain dedicated to the maintenance of relations of power. It is masculinist and exclusive, its walls firmly closed to the outside. Using experimental writing and storytelling, Eduardo Kairuz explores how, from the midst of this regime, an undisciplined approach might explode. We must creatively resist by practicing architecture “rebelliously and nomadically” to challenge the sedentary status quo. From the devastations of personal experience, I must also issue warnings, for the good fight is rigged. But fight we must, if we are to believe in this world.
— Professor Hélène Frichot, University of Melbourne
About the Author Eduardo Kairuz is a Melbourne-based Venezuelan architect and lecturer at the Faculty of Art Design & Architecture at Monash University (MADA).
About Anthem Press Anthem Press is a leading medium-sized independent academic, professional and trade publisher in established and emerging social sciences, business/law and humanities fields of study with a strong international and interdisciplinary focus.
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