This lecture series sets up an agenda for widening the disciplinary field of architecture and urbanism from their focus on the city, or the urban in the narrow sense, to wider territorial scales, which correspond to the increasing scales of contemporary urbanisation. It discusses the concepts of territory and urbanisation, and their implications for the work of architects and urbanists.

MY SPECIES

Within the theme My Species, the four guest speakers (Feifei Zhou, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Florianne Koechlin, and Oxana Timofeeva) engaged in fields ranging from art and landscape representation to bioethics and environmental philosophy, will approach territory through the notions such as multispecies, coexistence, and diversity. With a more-than-human perspective on the territory, the guest speakers will elaborate their take on “telling horrible stories in beautiful ways,” debate “the dignity of plants,” expound upon “mankind’s fascination to better the world,” and confer “the non-human turn” and what is to come after.

The course will enable students to critically discuss concepts of territory and urbanisation. It will invite students to revisit the history of architects’ work engaging with the problematic of urbanising territories and territorial organisation. The goal is to motivate and equip students to engage with territory in the present day and age, by setting out our contemporary urban agenda. The lectures are animated by a series of visual and conceptual exercises, usually on A4 sheets of paper. All original student contributions will be collected and bound together, creating a unique book-object. Some of the exercises are graded and count as proof of completion.

ARCHITECTURE OF TERRITORY—My Species is curated and organized by Milica Topalović, Nazlı Tümerdem, Michiel Gieben, Jan Westerheide, Vesna Jovanović, Metaxia Markaki, and Hans Hortig.