ISSUE #0 ISSUE #1
FORUM #1 FORUM #2
A box is a blob with corners. It is typologically a close relative to a building (even when the comparison might be derogative), both have robust exteriors and a tendency to dark mysterious interiors. But buildings do not arrive unexpectedly in the post with a return to sender request, as this one did.
Following forA on the Urban issue #0, the forthcoming issue continues the investigation of the main ideas of our manifesto—examining the open, unfinished, multi-scaled, interconnected, complex, and wild nature of urban manifestations, challenges, and situations through an expanded notion of architecture. With this in mind, we are asking for spatial frictions that result in extremes, imbalances, exclusions, or negotiations, but also identity construction, productive tensions, economic booms, or the emergence of multiplicity, plurality, and co-existence.
LAUNCH OF FORA ON THE URBAN ISSUE #0 AND FORUM #2With Bijoy Jain, Elke Krasny, and Sanford Kwinter
On April 30, join forA editors alongside Bijoy Jain, Elke Krasny, and Sanford Kwinter in Vienna for Forum #2, a conversation that will draw on contributions related to forA Issue #0 while seeking to address pressing issues that center around notions of friction with regard to our present moment.
ISSUE #0 LAUNCH AND CONVERSATIONLesley Lokko, John McMorrough, and Liam Young
If I had a dollar for every time somebody in my career, both as a student and as an educator, said to me, “Is that architecture?” I could have retired 25 years ago, very rich. From the get-go there’s been an obsession about what is and what isn’t architecture. That obsession, I think, has really curtailed the tools we use.
ALL CITIES CONTAIN “OTHERS”by Lesley Lokko
Writing, drawing, speaking, performing, listening… the means of communication and representation are one and the same. How we draw/think/make/see is profoundly tied to what we draw/think/make and see: can we draw differently? Can we teach ourselves to see differently?
URBANISM AND POLYPHONYby Sanford Kwinter
Unlike most environmental “solutions,” E. O. Wilson’s principle of Half-Earth is simple (conceptually), sound (scientifically), and workable (practically and politically), and is, in its plainness, nothing more or less than an urbanist concept engendered by a life (and evolution) scientist. In other words, it is a (new) wedding of the social (economic and industrial) and the biological (ecological) into a radical geography that invokes neither pain nor great surprise.
A CITY FOR ALLby Philippe Rekacewicz
In a capitalist world in which power has conscientiously monopolized almost all responsibilities and goods, considerably fragmenting and dismantling civil society, it is now time to rehabilitate the community as a responsible, strong, well-organized body, able to give a powerful response focused on serving the public, to counter the appetites of speculators.
A large mixed city is a space where actors from different worlds can have an encounter for which there are no established rules of engagement.
New institutional architectures will have to emerge in order to address the intensified disjunctions existing among multiple urban territories of operation—between those of capital accumulation and the suturing together of a semblance of livelihoods; between the infrastructural investments needed for the employment generation and the exigencies of sustainability.
As urban action is displaced by the virtual realm, the places of public appearance are also transported online, the screen penetrating the physical domestic space, framing and staging it. The ever-changing line that separates the street from the home, the public and private, the actual and the digital was made clear by the lockdown.
It’s Monday 5am and Sean’s alarm rings. He gets ready for his three-kilometer run, a routine which consists of nine laps around the Thomas More Edible Garden on the Barbican Estate. Shower water is only available every two days.
A CONGREGATION AROUND POSSIBILITIESJohn McMorrough
The most exciting urban experiences are those in which the generic and the particular (either as geometry or situation) are contrasted. For example, arriving in a new city by subway if possible, so as to not spoil the surprise.
ISSUE #0 ISSUE #1
FORUM #1 FORUM #2
forA on the Urban examines the open, unfinished, multi-scaled, interconnected, complex and wild nature of urban manifestations, challenges and situations through an expanded notion of architecture. It is made possible by Die Angewandte (University of Applied Arts Vienna), and conceptualized and produced by the Institute of Architecture (I oA)
Instagram: @fora_on_the_urban
Edited by
Gerald Bast, Rector, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Andrea Börner, Urban Strategies Department, I oA
Cristina Díaz Moreno, Architectural Design Studio 1, I oA
Efrén García Grinda, Architectural Design Studio 1, I oA
Baerbel Mueller, Applied Foreign Affairs Lab, I oA
Advisory Board
Tom Avermaete, Margitta Buchert, Nerea Calvillo, Mario Carpo, Filip de Boeck, Keller Easterling, Teresa Galí-Izard, Mario Gandelsonas, Andrew Herscher, Sandi Hilal, Nikolaus Hirsch, Elke Krasny, Sanford Kwinter, Lesley Lokko, Mpho Matsipa, John McMorrough, Peter Mörtenböck, Helge Mooshammer, Alessandro Petti, Philippe Rekacewicz, Curtis Roth, Saskia Sassen, Abdoumaliq Simone, Ines Weizman, Liam Young
forA Issue #0 launch and Forum #2 with Bijoy Jain, Elke Krasny, and Sanford Kwinter, I oA, University of Applied Arts Vienna
forA on the Urban website launch: Alex Lin (Studio Lin) and Nikolaus Hirsch (CIVA Brussels) in conversation
Editorial Board meeting to discuss the Annotations project for issue #0
forA Issue #0 launch and forum #1 with Lesley Lokko, Liam Young, John McMorrough at the 17th Biennale d’Architettura di Venezia
First copies of forA on the Urban Issue #0 arrive in Vienna
Advisory Board meeting to discuss Issue #0 content and future events
First Advisory Board meeting
Launch of Open Call for contributions to forA on the Urban Issue #0
Studio Lin appointed graphic designer
Formation of the forA on the Urban Advisory Board
Editorial Board meeting, and title is selected: forA on the Urban
First editorial meeting for an I oA journal on the urban
forA on the Urban examines the open, unfinished, multi-scaled, interconnected, complex and wild nature of urban manifestations, challenges and situations through an expanded notion of architecture.
Due to the expansive nature and increasing scale of the processes of artificialization and the parallel deterioration of our environment, most of the current demands on our civilizations are, in one way or another, intrinsically linked to the urban condition.
Architecture has always had a central role and a responsibility to meet challenges that cause dramatic changes in social life. Architecture will only continue to remain of societal relevance if it is willing to accept its societal responsibility and get in closer working contact with other disciplines, as the global challenges cannot be met through mono-discipline approaches.
We need to consider the interrelationships that produce challenges that tend to create situations of irreversible deterioration of the living conditions of our and other species, due to their complex, accelerative, multicausal, irreversible, and entangled nature, all in order to detect, examine, analyse and understand these situations in a way that goes beyond the common frames of reference and available practical tools.
Correspondingly, defining the parameters of the urban are crucial to the themes that orient the journal as both process and artefact. Only by destabilizing scalar (disciplinary and methodological) limitations can common practices of analyzing urbanity through isolated categories be challenged.
Exploring the formats of discursive essays, investigations and projects incites reflection and discussion towards an experimental multilogue and valuable contribution to the discourse around the urban. Embracing the notions of treatise, disquisition, and literary and artistic exploration of the essay aims to contribute to the necessary renovation of established vocabulary, formats, and methodologies, and the deconstructions of their very limits.
Thus, combining research with practical approaches and analysis, the journal seeks to articulate new formulations of urbanism.
Launch of Issue #0 and Forum #2, I oA, University of Applied Arts Vienna © I oA, Emma Sanson
Launch of Issue #0 and Forum #2, I oA, University of Applied Arts Vienna ©I oA, Emma Sanson
Launch of Issue #0 and Forum #2, I oA, University of Applied Arts Vienna © I oA, Emma Sanson
Launch of Issue #0 and Forum #2, I oA, University of Applied Arts Vienna © I oA, Emma Sanson
Launch of Issue #0 and Forum #2, I oA, University of Applied Arts Vienna © I oA, Emma Sanson
“After two of the most difficult and divisive years in living memory, architects have a unique opportunity to show the world what we do best: put forward ambitious and creative ideas that help us imagine a more equitable and optimistic future in common.” — Lesley Lokko at the launch of forA on the Urban issue #0, Venice Architecture Biennale, September 2021. Photo Carmen Egger
A conversation between Lesley Lokko, John McMorrough and Liam Young at the launch of forA on the forA on the Urban issue #0, Venice, 2021. Photo Carmen Egger
Launch of forA on the Urban issue #0, Venice, September 2021. Photo Carmen Egger
“When we think about the urban audience, it includes all of us in various ways. On the occasion of this publication, how do you envision that particular audience? We want to reach everyone in a way, but we also know that we have publications and venues that deliver certain messages to certain groups.” — John McMorrough, in conversation with Lesley Lokko and Liam Young at the launch of forA on the Urban issue #0, Venice Architecture Biennale, September 2021. Photo Carmen Egger
Guests listening to a conversation between Lesley Lokko, John McMorrough and Liam Young at the launch of forA on the forA on the Urban issue #0, Venice, 2021. Photo Carmen Egger