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hortence is the research centre for Architectural History, Theory and Criticism of the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta of the Université libre de Bruxelles
hortence is the research centre for Architectural History, Theory and Criticism of the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta of the Université libre de Bruxelles
Perspectives on Dwelling:
Architectural Anthropologies of Home
Dr Ray Lucas, International Chair 2022
workshop 25/4/2022–25/05/2022
Perspectives on Dwelling: Architectural
Anthropologies of Home
This workshop asks participants to make use of drawing and other inscriptive practices as a way of understanding and deepening engagement with the world. Drawing is a form of perception and understanding.
The interpretation of the environment and description of our world through lines is an important practice to architecture, however those lines are inscribed. By drawing, we are able to see more deeply, able to understand more thoroughly, interpret meanings and explore possibilities. This workshop will explore a variety of inscription practices and ask participants to apply these to the spaces of everyday life, where we live and dwell.
The aim is to explore both the conventions of architectural drawing and to expand the scope to consider alternative traditions of inscriptive practice such as notation. The aim is to describe the temporalities of
dwelling as a state continually in the making and never completed.
The work is grounded in a long-term engagement with the work of anthropologist Tim Ingold, bringing his wide
ranging discussions of being, liveliness, and imagining into contact with the practices of architectural design and theory. We owe it to ourselves to restore drawing to its place in the academy as a worthwhile activity, one capable of incredible nuance and which communicates with an engaging directness, bringing the viewer into the observations of the scribe.
Ray Lucas has a PhD in Social Anthropology proposing A Theory of Notation as a Thinking Tool and an MPhil with the thesis Filmic Architecture. He is Reader in Architecture at Manchester School of Architecture (MSA), and has held a range of positions at the Manchester Metropolitan University and University of Manchester including a three year term as head of department between 2015 and 2018. Lucas is currently the Head of Humanities, working across the BA and Masters programmes of one of the largest architecture schools in the UK and setting the agenda for our programme of architectural history, theory and pioneering delivery of architectural social sciences. At MSA, Lucas has delivered a range of units including Thinking Through Drawing, Anthropology of Home, Inscribing the City, and Filmic Architecture.
Lucas is Author of Research Methods for Architecture (Laurence King, 2016); Drawing Parallels: Knowledge Production in Axonometric, Isometric, and Oblique Drawings (Routledge, 2019); and Anthropology for Architects: Social Relations and the Built Environment (Bloomsbury, 2020). These works establish a continuing research interest in anthropological aspects of architecture. Lucas is also co-editor of the volume Architecture, Festivals and the City (Routledge, 2018). His current project is a new monograph on the architecture of Japanese festivals for Bloomsbury.
Week 1
Monday 25/4/22 14h-16h Introductory Talk: Why I Draw
Tuesday 26/4/22 10h-12h Talk: Drawing Parallels
14h-17h Workshop Session: Copying as Understanding
Wednesday 27/4/22 10h-12h Talk: Graphic Anthropologies
14h-17h Workshop Session: Taking a Walk for a Line…
18h-19h30 Public Lecture: All Drawings Are Failures
Week 2 Contributors work on their projects.
Wednesday 4/5/22 10h-12h Talk: A Theory of Notation as a Thinking Tool
14h-17h Workshop Session: Rendering Visible: Movement & Sensory Notations
Week 3 Contributors work on their projects.
Wednesday 11/5/22 10h-12h Talk: Perspectives on Dwelling
14h-17h Workshop Session: Inventories & Describing the Ordinary
Week 4 Contributors work on their projects.
Week 5
Monday 23/5/22 10h-17h Contributors’ presentations.
Tuesday 24/5/22 10h-12h Talk: The Social Life of Drawing Conventions
14h-18h Workshop Session: Collaborative Drawings
Wednesday 25/5/22 10h-16h Exhibition Mounting
18h- Vernissage