Call for Papers
Which History?
Fifth Architectural Conversation in the Werner Oechslin Library
Friday 11 November to Sunday 13 November 2011
The Modern always attempted to block out or even overcome history. Of course it not only had its own history, but it also shaped history, whether as a “new tradition” (as Giedion), or as “new style” (as the International Style in 1932—borrowing from the Gothic, of all things). For the most part, self-representation (with oneself at the center) was the chief motivation of these intiatives. In 1955 Reyner Banham formulated this—within the framework of something that we read as a manifesto of Brutalism—as the “recent history of history,” further defined as the “inner history of the Modern Movement itself”; he also expressly demanded it, with this placement of emphasis. A little later Nikolaus Pevsner, for whom the Modern had long reached its goal and terminated with Walter Gropius, polemically bestowed the term “historicism” on the new postwar architecture. Thus, nearly all the available labels or guises of the historical have entered the horizon of modern architecture.
Still more, such a historical view of an “inner history” was and is so strong, that even today it seems to supplant all the rest. Only specialists bother with history before Le Corbusier and Gropius. Semper, Borromini and Bramante all seem to fade equally far away into the past. And worse, what has faded into the past becomes a museum piece or mythologized, and it is hard to say which of these approaches is the least objectionable.
Is this just an omission, a careless oversight, the result of negligence? Or do we really have a problem with our long-term memory and shrink away from the all-too-different phenomena of a distant past?
For more information, consult the detailed introductory text by Werner Oechslin (in German):
To allow as much time as possible for mutual discussion, papers should be limited to twenty-minute presentations.
Languages for abstracts and presentations: German, English, French, Italian.
At least a passive knowledge of German is expected of all participants.
The Foundation assumes the hotel costs for course participants, as well as group dinners. Travel costs cannot be reimbursed.
Please send brief proposals and CVs by e-mail to:
philipp.tscholl@bibliothek-oechslin.ch
CFP deadline: 10 October 2011
