How do we start a discussion on this topic? Obviously I am grounded on Roland Barthes and his initiation into the Readers in ' 'The Death of the Author '. Instead of looking up to the shining stars /star architects in commodity driven 'society of spectacles' can we be grounded in our everyday nuanced lives and give meaning to architecture? How?
It sounds an interesting project. I am also exploring similar question in relation to architects’ design approach, ‘do architects follow champion architects or do they champion people in design process?’ I am planning a fieldwork in Khulna in Bangladesh early 2019. I plan to explore around 20 architects’ design approaches. It wIll be great to know your experience from other cities.
Dear Ashraf,
Thanks for your reply. Good to know you are working on a topic as interesting as this. I left a thread for discussion though (not a project).
Right now many Gulf cities are redefining their places in the 'Global South'. This opens up whole lot of possibilities to connect places from Dubai to Dhaka, for example (drawing such connections used to feel odd before!). Do update on your project on researchgate.
The twentieth century discourse of architecture was all about pioneers of Modern Architecture (Pevsner), very much like the Modern Art World. The focus was all about what and how the Architect conceptualise and creates an architectural wonder. Later the Post-modernism too employed the narrative of modernism of 'icons' or 'star architects'.
With the emergence of focussed specialisations and a shift towards the 'user' and 'service' (I think which came from the field of Design), the 'star architects' are mutating to 'star brands'. In formal practice of architecture, the outsourcing of specialised processes has further led to dilution of 'authorship' as it is becoming more and more anonymous.
I hope, I understood the question well.
Thank you very much for your thoughts. Interesting directions for loss of ‘authorship’ due to contemporary trend in outsourcing as it is in architecture now.
Barthes work is very relevant to architecture as he rejects authorial intent and tyranny and instead nurtures a reader-response ( a possible critical approach to give agency to 'users' in architecture).
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