Architectural Association / Visiting School Program
The Architectural Association (AA) is the UK’s oldest independent school of architecture : created in London in 1847 by two students when no similar training course existed, it develops since then an ambitious educative program, which in a very great degree helped shape modern architectural education and the profession in the UK and beyond. With renowned teachers and prestigious alumni, its Architecture School leads and trains students to modern architecture’s ongoing evolution and the challenges faced by today’s architects : city poles transformation, Renewable energies and urban ecology, or new social issues of globalization.
Structured around a worldwide association of members, the Architectural Association endeavours to give to its school a resolutely transnational dimension. Alongside with the fact that 85 per cent of its students (and a similar percentage of tutors) come to London from abroad, the Architecture School develops since 2008 the program « Visiting School » : a serie of workshops held all around the world, based on an international network of institutions. Students, but also professionals and other participants, can this way discover exceptional places and personalities, new architectural issues, specific techniques and knowledges…
With this in mind, the Architectural Association appealed to Villa Vassilieff to create its first « Visiting School » in Paris. This first workshop, titled « Architecture and Writing » directed Caroline Rabourdin, will be modeled on the Parisian literary Salon and will mostly be based on French literature and philosophy, from Merleau-Ponty to Michel Butor and surrealists writings : it aims to celebrate writing as a critical and creative practice, in its analogies and links with architectural practice. Participants will see manuscripts and artist books first hand, at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, as well as from the smaller collection Immanence; they will gain critical insight on their own writing and also learn to present their work in front of an audience.
Some guests will be there to guide and help participants :
Caroline Rabourdin, is a French architect, essayist and academic living in London. Her current research includes spatial theory, geometry, phenomenology, spatial literature and comparative literature as creative practices. She currently teaches at the AA School and is a PhD candidate at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL.
Prof. Mireille Calle-Gruber, writer and Professor at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris III, editor of Michel Butor’s “Œuvres Complètes” (Paris: La Différence, 2006) and co-author with Hélène Cixous of “Photos de Racines” (Paris : Des Femmes, 1994).
Didier Faustino, artist and architect, diploma unit master at the AA and chief editor of French architectural and design magazine “Architectures Créé” since 2015. Faustino explores the relationship between body and space, through architectural interventions and installations. His latest exhibitions include “Des Corps et des Astres”, in Grenoble, and “Undomesticated Places” at the AA.
Sojung Jun, South-Korean artist in residence at the Villa, recipient of the Pernod Ricard Fellowship. Jun’s current work on synaesthesia takes literature as a point of departure; her next project is based on “Le Paysan de Paris” by surrealist writer Louis Aragon.
Dr. Kristen Kreider, writer, interdisciplinary artist and Director of the practice-based PhD Programme, English Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, author of “Poetics & Place: The Architecture of Sign, Subjects and Site” (I.B. Tauris, January 2014) and co-author with James O’Leary of “Falling” (Copy Press, 2014).
The workshop will take place at Villa Vassilieff from July 1st to 10th, 2016, and will culminate in a public event where the participants will be able to showcase their final work. The program will be run in English.
- Architectural Association Visiting School, Villa Vassilieff, 2016.
- Architectural Association Visiting School, Villa Vassilieff, 2016.
- Architectural Association Visiting School, Villa Vassilieff, 2016.
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