Theory Project: Introduction

International Master Semester 1 (Msc 1) Theory Project

Course Description
Over the past several decades the constitutive limits within the profession of architecture have significantly expanded what we might have previously referred to as the ‘problem of making’; equally, matters which concern theoretical discourse within spatial disciplines have, in many cases, transgressed what was traditionally understood as the ‘problem of thought’. Together, they have become much more intertwined in the form of what we may generally refer to as the ‘problematic of thinking’.

With this in mind, and by letting go of the classic Theory vs. Practice dualism (whereby theory is seen to somehow pose or formulate the problematic to which design must subsequently respond, or in which design will then be engaged in order to issue answers), we hope to offer a more transdisciplinary approach to the integral nature of spatial problematics as they derive from the workings of the architect both in terms of intellectual discourse and design as intuitive intelligence. Deborah Hauptmann)


Reflection on the Works
This theory course has an interesting name: Theory Project. It is not only the theoretical component of a young architectural student’s training, but also a ‘project’. A project is not a mere assignment but an assemblage of purpose, idea and proposition. The project, in a wider definition through a lifetime’s work, is what defines the intellectual. At the university when one starts the training as an professional, or better as an intellectual, the project starts.

In this understanding of project and the responsibility as a teacher, I have always preferred seeing myself as a midwife- a facilitator for students’ path towards the formulation of his/her project. I believe students have left their familiar and comfortable homes to study abroad because they are pursuing something more important and more complex than the knowledge of assembling buildings. In all the students’ works I try to discover with them what they are searching for and formulate their project. To take this position as a teacher one leaves one’s personal taste or private interests behind and be in the mind of the students. In this semester I am honoured to witness very significant transformation of some students in my group.

We used the essays of Michael Speaks, Bruno Latour, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze as starting point of the journey. Key notions adopted by students are: innovation, thing, lines of flight, becoming, simulacrum, landscape, post-structuralism, memory, world citizen, identity, complexity and the modern condition.

It has been a beautiful journey accompanying nine students’ search of ‘projects’. After hardcore philosophical reading, they extracted what puzzled them in modern life, relation between thinking and making, and modes of innovation. And what invigorated me most in this tutoring process is when the theoretical moments touched the student’s soul and brought out his/her existential crisis to confront one’s past, presence and future. This is evident in Xiaoguang’s metamorphosis and Megan’s answers in modern nomad. Theory project in this sense has become one of ‘those moments in a life after which one is no longer the same person as before’ (P. Patton, The Deleuze Dictionary: freedom). And I am curious what their projects are after Theory Project. (Shiuan-Wen Chu)


Students
Daniel Beirao de Carvalho
Janita Pei Ling Han
Taeyun Kim
Lin Lin
Yu-Chen Lin
Megan Fei Men Ng
Hjordis Soley Sigurdardottir
Jana Veselka
Xiaoguang Zhang