Relational Architecture

“Space” is defined and shaped by social forces.

NEW APPROACHES IN NEGOTIATING SPATIAL CONFLICTS

It is one of the paradoxes of globalisation that while the deregulation of social and political institutions promoted by the ‘free market’ fosters an accelerated mobilisation of goods and people, we face ever expanding investments into safeguarding claims of cultural coherence through the establishment of control infrastructures. These measures range from the remodelling of entire landscapes along the erection of border walls to the implementation of surveillance technologies and the spread of gated communities within our cities.

Yet space has numerous dimensions: it is not just boundaries that create a “space”, but also what happens in it. Instead of looking at signature architecture and representative spaces that traditionally dominate the discourse of architectural history the research turned to sites of crisis and conflict that rupture the logics of coherence from within. In a series of field studies the project investigated how ensuing constellations of self-organisation can become a means of negotiating forms of co-existence, whereby the question of spatial organisation becomes a question of social, cultural and political arrangements and vice versa – as is the case when trajectories of migration converge in informal marketplaces.

Together, this multitude of performative acts that continuously rewrite and shift the meaning of a particular spatial setting contributes to a relational architecture, which is not inextricably bound up with the spatial ordering by the governing authorities but emerges as a collective endeavour of inhabiting a place, connecting different actors and cultures through shared experiences and expectations.

This shift from material to process oriented relations challenges traditional instruments of planning. Here, the many new approaches to explore, contest and appropriate space that the research has investigated point towards a new kind of spatial practice: one that engages in conflictuous negotiations about the use and value of space and, by doing so, transforms our contemporary understanding of spatial and cultural belonging.

Team
HELGE MOOSHAMMER, project director
PETER MÖRTENBÖCK

Funded by
AUSTRIAN SCIENCE FUND (FWF): P19258