In the three fields of work “Institutions”, “Networks” and “Discourses”, the research training group examines the genesis of organized and organizing architectures, their consequences for social spaces and planning development options. We do not consider the three fields of work mentioned above scientific perspectives that can be precisely separated from one another. The question of institutions, networks and discourses forms the common framework for all those involved, regardless of the historically and methodologically different approaches of the research training group. An analysis of institutions focuses on the mutual dependencies of actors in systems; an examination of networks enables insights into far-reaching interrelationships and their structural conditions; in the study of discourses the construction of narratives and canons is examined, as well as questions of reception and modeling. The research training group thus challenges young academics to research architectures in an interdisciplinary manner as products of complex, collective and organized practices within overall social and political processes so as to take into account their polycausal emergences and impacts. Accordingly, scientists from different disciplines and research areas are involved, offering the fellows different perspectives on architecture.
Field of work 1: Institutions
The focus of the field of institutions is on processes of controlled orientation, regulation and “organization” of processes, people and things. Here, concepts of efficiency, functionality, historicity, hygiene, objectivity, rationality, precision, sustainability, normativity, professionalization, participation, security and transparency as well as their media representations come to the fore and are examined for their legitimizing, discourse-controlling and aesthetic functions. Historically, the bureaucratic-administrative shifts in planning activities occurred through the implementation of senior building directorates and construction and planning departments, the differentiation of a formalized contract and competition procedure, the institutionalized training in construction academies and technical universities, the legal regulation of planning, construction and competition processes, the founding of architects’ associations and interest groups and organizations such as the Association of German Architects in 1903 in Frankfurt am Main and the German Werkbund in 1907 in Munich. With the totalitarian regimes of the early 20th century, a further wave of state influence on planning practice and its bureaucratization can be observed. The associated ideals and ideologies continued to have an impact on planning discourses well beyond the 1960s. After the War, numerous large-scale projects emerged at the municipal level, such as the banlieues in France, which particularly combined political programs, social science research, current social issues, collective identity formation processes, findings from the international planning discourse and reforms in architectural training. In recent years, the architecture of state, non-governmental, and supranational organizations such as UNESCO, the UN and the EU but also of property developers, companies, banks and insurance companies and regulatory bodies have become the focus of research. The field of work continues to research these developments, which are eminently important for the history of architecture, and incorporates fundamental findings from organizational sociology, institutional analysis and administrative sciences. In doing so, the research training group fundamentally assumes that the “embodied self-representation of an order” through the “symbolic coding power of architecture” (Rehberg 2009) is a decisive criterion for the legitimacy of institutions. Research questions arise, for example, from the following objects of investigation: collective and official planning and monument preservation, archives, political decision-making processes, standardization, legislation, institutional legitimation strategies, media representation requirements, competition procedures, participation strategies and the entire unregulated area of informal practices, including deviations and permitted violations of rules as well as the media-technological organization of design, but also the architectural-monumental embodiment of institutions as well as patriarchal structures, processes and role models.
Field of work 2: Networks
Parallel to the institutionalization processes of modernity, a polycentric understanding of space is becoming increasingly important: road and rail systems, for example, have been presented as networks since the end of the 18th century, and garden cities and settlement complexes as nodes connected to one another via transport and communication routes. In the age of digitalization, increasingly complex spatial configurations that develop their own specific topography beyond real places are emerging. The research training group is not only interested in the concept of networks as a historical or contemporary phenomenon of an infrastructural and media-technological reorganization of space. Building on cultural studies interpretations, it sees it as a cultural technique that is more effective today than ever before and that organizes relationships between living beings, things and ideas in a comprehensive sense. Accordingly, the field of work deals not only with the materially constructed network, but also with the network in its social and societal conception as a complex of actors, media and objects, but also of institutions and organizations. In view of this hybrid nature of networks, following numerous reflections on the concept of network at the beginning of this century, the question arises of whether the “dichotomy between culture and nature” (Rudolph-Cleff/Gehrmann 2020), between “organic” and “artificial” (Böhme 2004), between real presence and media, reality should not be viewed as a modern myth (Latour 2007; Latour/Yaneva 2008; Martin 2003). This should be examined in particular with regard to the assumption of an ontological difference between the creative subject and the organizations, institutions, networks and media that are, as it were, object-like in opposition to it. In view of a world that is increasingly structured in a network-like manner, the question of the cognitive potential of such explanatory models for the investigation of formalized planning processes, normative visualization strategies, organizational-institutional procedures and expert cultures is more important than ever. Within the framework of the research training group, the concept of the network takes on the overriding importance of an instrument of knowledge. Unlike previous research on the biographical interrelationships of the protagonists in the history of architecture, the focus of the field of work is on organizational processes, political alliances, economic dependencies and institutionalizations as well as their representative and bureaucratic forms. Structures of associations, clubs, chambers, representatives of the construction industry as well as private and informal networks and their forms of “organization”, such as organizational charts, distribution of responsibilities, forms of exchange, type of meetings and communication media, are examined. Aspects such as interest representation, self-administration, collectivization and exchange, distinction and group dynamics play a role: interpersonal representations (who represents whose interests in which networks, which configurations reflect the interests of which groups), but also instructions for action and target agreements from NGOs or the UN, as well as local measures such as citizens’ initiatives or participation in planning processes, are brought together with questions of diversity and (different) visibility of the groups and actors, protest and alternative movements involved.
Field of work 3: Discourses
The research training group investigates how discourse spaces are constructed and deconstructed, which medialities and archives are used or ignored as evidence and justification, and how scientific discourse formation manifests itself in architectural forms. As a condition of architecture-relevant discourses, disciplinary, social, spatial and digital accessibility and inaccessibility must be taken into account, as must the question of how discourse dominance is structurally created, defended and contested. In modern times, public interest in architecture is linked to new formats and media of reflection such as essays, reports, polemics, critiques and manifestos. Modernist architecture also increasingly served to project ideological-political ideas of order and institutional self-presentation. Both can easily be understood from the prominence of new building projects (museums, parliamentary buildings, banks, stock exchanges etc.) and the social debates that continue to be sparked by them today. Examples include the Palais de Justice de Bruxelles (1866-1883), the projects of Georges-Eugène Baron Haussmann in Paris (1853-1870), the Palais des Nations in Geneva (1927) and the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. More recently, for example, the capital city plans in Berlin, Ground Zero in New York or the new old town in Frankfurt have led to this. With the emergence of corporate organizations such as corporations themselves and interest groups, such as associations or alliances, at the end of the 19th century on the one hand, and the expansion of the state’s sphere of intervention on the other, an ever-closer intertwining of politics, business and the state can be observed (Habermas 1990). Since the growing influence of mass media in the early 20th century and finally with globalization and digitization in the 21st century, such interrelations have reached their temporary peak. In more recent developments, real-world laboratories are playing an increasingly important role in urban development, in which, in addition to temporary changes in public space (e.g. closure to motorized traffic), data on the associated goals (e.g. more cyclists) are collected. The extent to which the findings obtained in this way flow into the political and social discourse and influence longer-term planning has so far been little investigated. Central to the field of work is the question of the (more or less structural) involvement of various actors and interest groups. Concepts such as the “mouthpiece”, representation and agency, ideologies and ways of life, connection with political interests and forms and possibilities of criticism are becoming relevant. Of interest are narratives, media reports (e.g. Who writes where, when and how about construction projects?), digital platforms and mediation offers such as exhibitions and guided tours as well as all forms of architectural criticism and journalism.
- Böhme, Hartmut: Einführung – Netzwerke. Zur Theorie und Geschichte einer Konstruktion, in: Jürgen Barkhoff/Hartmut Böhme/Jeanne Riou (Hrsg.): Netzwerke. Eine Kulturtechnik der Moderne, Köln 2004.
- Latour, Bruno: Eine neue Soziologie für eine neue Gesellschaft: Einführung in die Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie, Berlin 2007.
- Latour, Bruno/Yaneva, Albena: “Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move”: an ANT’s view of architecture, in: Reto Geiser (Hrsg.): Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, Basel 2008, S. 80–89.
- Pandit, Lakshya/Vasquez, Gladys Fauggier/Gu, Lanqing/Knöll, Martin: How Do People Use Frankfurt Mainkai Riverfront During a Road Closure Experiment? A snapshot of public space usage during the coronavirus lockdown in May 2020, in: Cities & Health, Vol. 5, Issue sup 1 (2020), S. 243–262, https://doi.org/10.1080/23748834.2020.1843127.
- Rehberg, Karl-Siegbert: Gebaute Raumsymbolik. Die ‘Architektur der Gesellschaft’ aus der Sicht der Institutionenanalyse, in: Joachim Fischer/Heike Delitz (Hrsg.): Die Architektur der Gesellschaft.Theorien für die Architektursoziologie, Bielefeld 2009, S. 109–136.
- Rudolph-Cleff, Annette/Gehrmann, Simon: Water as a Resource, in: Wang Fang/Martin Prominski (Hrsg.): Water-Related Urbanization and Locality, Singapore 2020, S. 219–236.
- Schwartz, Frederic: Der Werkbund. Ware und Zeichen. 1900–1914, Dresden 1999.