Work in progress seminar: Agamben and architecture

IMPORTANT UPDATE: This event is cancelled because University College London is taking part in the University and College Union strike action on 22 February. Apologies for the late notice.

In this Work in Progress seminar, Camillo Boano, Professor at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, will present his recent book in conversation with CENDEP’s Cathrine Brun. The book titled The Ethics of Potential Urbanism. Critical encounters between Giorgio Agamben and Architecture is a unique engagement with the philosopher Giorgio Agamben from a position of architecture and urban planning. Professor Boano will present an outline and the main argument of the book. This is followed by a conversation between Boano and Brun about how, by engaging with Agamben, we can promote a radically new architecture. Within Agamben’s philosophy lies a social critique and analysis that enables a potentiality – the ability to act – or not to act, the possibility to resist and a hopeful architecture. Agamben’s exceptionalism is perhaps most known in our field for the contribution to the ways in which we can approach humanitarian action and human rights. While the camp is the most prominent and most discussed spatiality of Agamben’s work, we aim to discuss how that spatiality can be applied in shelter, housing and home. The conversation will consider the meaning of the material and the social in understanding how practice inform theory but also how Agamben’s philosophy can inform practice.

For the whole seminar series programme, check this blog post.