Itright to Architecture

RIGHT TO ARCHITECTURE A Symposium organized by Nasser Rabbat and sponsored by AKPIA@MIT MIT Program, Abstracts, and Biographies @ Saturday April 20, 2013 9:30 am to 6:00 pm MIT room 6-120 “UMM-KALTHOUM OVERLOOKING CAIRO SLUM” Photo by DAVID HABERLAH AKPIA BIOGRAPHIES AND ABSTRACTS ______________________________________________________________ IS THERE A RIGHT TO ARCHITECTURE? Thomas Fisher Dean, College of Design, University of Minnesota ABSTRACT Is there a right to architecture? There is a universal right to shelter, as there is to every- thing else on the first two levels of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (food, water, warmth, security, stability, freedom from fear). But to claim a “right” to “architecture,” we need to qualify what we mean. If we mean by “architecture,” environments that enhance people’s sense of belonging (Maslow’s third level), their self-esteem (fourth level), and self-actualization (fifth level), and if we mean by “right,” an equal opportunity to meet these fundamental needs, then the answer to the opening question is “yes.” But if we mean by “architecture,” the artistic practice of professional architects, and by “right,” the guarantee of something, then no, people do not have a right to architecture. Indeed, given the provoca- tions that sometimes arise from self-actualized architects’ own creative expression through their buildings, it might be more the case that people have a right not to have to endure such architecture. Accordingly, the question of whether people have a right to architecture demands that, if we are to answer it in the affirmative, architects must attend much more to the hierarchy of other’s needs and much less to their own. BIOGRAPHY Thomas Fisher is a Professor in the School of Architecture, Dean of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, and a former President and Board Member of the ACSA. A graduate of Cornell University in architecture and Case Western Reserve University in intellectual history, he has written extensively about architecture and ethics, including the 2008 book Architectural Design and Ethics, Tools for Survival (The Architectural Press) and the 2010 book Ethics for Architects, 50 Dilemmas of Professional Practice (Princeton Ar- chitectural Press). A third book-length manuscript on ethics is currently under review by a publisher. He has also written a chapter on the history of ethics education in Architecture School: Three Centuries of Educating Architects in North America, and has written part of the chapter on ethics for the next edition of The Architects Handbook of Professional Practice. ______________________________________________________________ WHO NEEDS ICONS ANYWAY? Anna Heringer Architect, Salzburg, Austria ABSTRACT The biggest challenge for architects at present is to build safe and good living conditions for seven billion people and to use architecture as a tool to foster social justice, to enrich our built environment with cultural diversity and to stabilize our planet`s ecosystem. My impression is that our architectural education systems are not able yet to prepare architects to face that challenge. Why are there so many architects unemployed when at the same time the major part of our global population is in need of planners? And are we aware of the power and responsibility that is embodied in our designs? Every choice of a building technology or material decides on who is getting the profit of the building. Is the construction labour intensive and a lot of craftsmanship involved or is the construction material intensive, supporting big industries? Architecture is very political in that sense. Whatever we build ends somewhere: in the water, the atmosphere and in the ground which affects a lot of people. The right to architecture is also a right to access resources. It`ll probably a good start for every design process to ask yourself: How would the world look like if seven billion people design and build this way? BIOGRAPHY At the age of 19 Anna spent a year in Bangladesh as development learner. Since then devel- opmentwork is her passion. She graduated from Linz University of Arts in 2004 with the design for the „Handmade-school in Rudrapur“ made of bamboo and mud. In 2005/2006 the school was realized followed by housing projects in 2007/08. She was visiting professor in Stuttgart and Vienna and director of BASEhabitat, Linz from 2008 – 2011. Since 2010 she has been the honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair Earthen Architecture Programme. Last year she was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard`s GSD. She currently works on projects in Afri- ca and Asia with local materials in the focus. Her work was shown at MoMA in New York, la Loge in Brussels, Cité d`architecture and du patrimoine in Paris, the MAM in Sao Paulo, the Aedes Galery in Berlin and at the Venice Biennal. She recieved a number of awards such as the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2007), the AR Emerging Architecture Awards (2006 and 2008), the Archprix–Hunter Douglas Award (2006) and the Global Award for Sustain- able Architecture (2011). ______________________________________________________________ THE RIGHT TO ARCHITECTURE: BEYOND PARTICIPATION Kareem Ibrahim Architect and Planner, Takween Integrated Community Development ABSTRACT The term ‘Right to Architecture’ assumes there are three elements: a right, people who claim the right, and custodians of the right. If local communities strive day after day to claim their right to architecture, are architects the custodians? In fact, architects are often accused of serving only the rich and the ones who can afford their services. Architects are also accused of excluding the needs of their local communities when it comes to designing public buildings and spaces. Architects are accused that they are simply indifferent. In some other cases architects start to care. As a result, they believe they are the custodians of the right to architecture. But such beliefs soon end up with failing attempts of social engineering. Hassan Fathy’s New Gourna and so as many similar projects are good examples of architects’ illusions of total control and ability to influence and shape people’s lives. Such architects believe they are the only ones who possess the wisdom, knowledge and ability to grant local communities their right to architecture. In a world where local communities produce more than 90% of its built environment without the need for architects, should not architects be more realistic about their true influence? What would be the role of architects to support such local communities? How would architects escape the traps of either being indifferent or falling under illusions of social engineering and absolute control? In fact, architects have many roles to play beyond their conventional practice and direct community participation models. The development of economic, social and cultural rights since the 1960s in different urban contexts around the world provides architects with more responsibilities towards their communities. These roles and responsibilities tran- scend the direct technical functions of today’s architect, to what is economic and political about their profession. This presentation is an attempt to explore the parameters among which architects can find a role to support local communities. It also tries to identify what elements consti- tute the ‘Right to Architecture’ and how to work with local communities to claim it. And finally, it demonstrates the efforts of a group of Egyptian architects who strive to work with local communities, while trying to find practical mechanisms to sustain their daily business in today’s Egypt. BIOGRAPHY Kareem Ibrahim is an architect and planner graduate from Cairo University in 1995. In 1997, he worked on the UNDP’s Historic Cairo Rehabilitation Project. He has also worked for Aga Khan Cultural Services - Egypt between 1997 and 2010 as the Built Environment Coordinator of the Darb al-Ahmar Revitalization Project, one of Cairo’s most ambitious urban revitalization programs. In 2009, he co-founded Takween Integrated Community De- velopment and has been working on a range of issues including sustainable architecture, participatory planning, affordable housing, public infrastructure, and urban revitalization throughout Egypt with a number of local and international organizations. ______________________________________________________________ THE ROLE OF MEDIA IN THE RIGHT TO ARCHITECTURE MOVEMENT Cathleen McGuigan Editor-in-Chief, Architectural Record Editorial Director, GreenSource and SNAP McGraw-Hill Construction ABSTRACT Architectural journalism attempts not to set agendas but to reflect what is transpiring in the field of design and the culture at large. Yet editors, journalists and critics can play a key role in architecture’s shifting priorities. This session will examine how magazines, exhi- bitions, conferences, Internet sites and social media have actively promoted humanitarian design. It also will explore in brief the critical connections of this growing movement to current changes in architecture and culture, including the economic recession; an expand- ed focus on urbanism and public space; the rise of sustainability and its emphasis on local conditions; the waning obsession with iconic architecture; and the increase of cross-disci- plinary collaborations among architects, urbanists, and social scientists. BIOGRAPHY Cathleen McGuigan is editor-in-chief of Architectural Record, the nation’s leading architecture publication for more than a century. McGuigan, who is the second woman to serve as editor in chief, was named to the post in 2011. Under her leadership, Record won the 2012 Grand Neal award, the top American Business Media award for overall excellence, as well as being named to the Media Power 50 list in B to B Magazine. She also serves as editorial director of GreenSource, an award-winning sustainable design magazine launched in 2006, and SNAP, a products publication that debuted in 2009. McGuigan, a former Newsweek architecture critic and arts editor, has more than three de- cades of cultural journalism experience. A Michigan native, she holds a BA degree in English, with a minor in art history, from Brown University.

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