Architect, a Puppeteer?
Join us for a discussion bringing together architects, urbanists, artists, a puppeteer and a scenographer to consider ideas around the architect/urban planner as the master of humans in public space.
Sensible architects are likely to deny it, but architecture as a practice and academic discipline is animated by a faith that it can shape people’s lives through design and built environment. Architectural design is arguably layered fictions, projections and imaginaries: from design philosophy, where the hypothetical end-user is expected to behave in a certain way; to visualisation techniques, where docile human cut-outs are arranged within renderings, resembling more theatre props than people. While private spaces leave us to deal with architectural determinism through one-to-one relationships, the discrepancy between an architect’s dream with its dream real-life user and how real people interact with architecture is nowhere more conspicuous than in public space.
Architect, a Puppeteer? is presented in partnership between Theatrum Mundi, London, and VI PER Gallery, Prague, to coincide with PQ19, the 2019 Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space.
Speakers: Beth Weinstein, architect and performer, University of Arizona, Hza Bažant puppet designer, illustrator, and stage designer, Theatre Faculty, The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Justinien Tribillon, urbanist and researcher, Theatrum Mundi and Migrant Journal, Katerina Vídenová, architect, MAK Architects, Marta Michalowska, artist and curator, Theatrum Mundi and The Wapping Project, Océane Ragoucy, architect and researcher, TVK Architects, Paris.