Online Talks
On cities: The Living Memory of Cities
Over the last few decades, the field of architecture has been enriched by generous contributions, from research and education to the work on projects responding to the urban scale of cities. Across a vast body of work – drawn and written, published and built – many authors have been a living reference for generations of architects by deepening the field of thinking, dwelling, building in the world we live. This same group now comes together for a forum on cities and their time, and the layers of their history: not so much those layers we recall or have now forgotten, but those that cities remember. Intervening in this living ground is often the beginning of a debate that challenges time-honoured custom as well as new ways of life, all of which have their most visible reflection in the field of architecture.
These online seminars have as their main focus the contemporary drama of intervening in the historical fabric of cities, which is also the fabric of living memory. This is a central topic within the scope of urban projects cast through the light of architectural tradition and urban memory in a world undergoing fast transition and change. The series aims to uncover a broader territory and body of work as well as contributing to the international debate: on what we have inherited, on what we have been building and the cities in which we live today. Organised in collaboration with London Metropolitan University.
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On sacred space: Presence, Person, Beauty
This series brings contemporary authors to reflect on some of the most primary questions for theology and philosophy as well as the history of art and architecture. From divine dwelling in the Old Testament to its Christian understanding, the question of divine presence in the visible world has been at the heart of the community of the faithful. From the ancient search for the face of God to the traditional understanding of person, the question of personhood and its myriad implications have challenged our understanding throughout history. They have also guided our understanding of what it means to live together and build our world. And yet, in our contemporary lives, we often seem oblivious to the natural goodness and beauty of the created world in which we dwell and build; even in today’s sacred art and architecture, the word beauty is scarcely, if ever, used.
These online seminars on presence, person and the theology of beauty – of the created world, of art and architecture – explore these topics in a way that is by no means exclusive to the sacred, but hopefully provocative in the best sense of the term. Organised by Eric Parry Architects in collaboration with The Reverend Canon Peter Newby, St Mary’s University.
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PDF Programme (click for further details)
2022/23
Alexis Vinogradov Orthodox Church in America
18 October 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Liturgical theology & architecture: An eastern Christian contribution
Mohsen Mostafavi Harvard University
26 October 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Sharing Tokyo: Artifice and the Social World
Tony Fretton Tony Fretton Architects
8 November 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
“Nature begins to relate to us only when we indwell in it, when culture begins in it”
Níall McLaughlin Níall McLaughlin Architects
15 November 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
“Old Timber to New Fires”
Renée Tobe University of East London
28 November 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Creating an Urban Pattern From Opposites, Recollection, Similarity, Harmony, and Composites
Biba Dow Dow Jones Architects
6 December 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Quiet Marvels
Robert Tavernor Tavernor Consultancy, Architecture + Heritage
16 January 2023
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
A particular point of view: London and the picturesque
Catherine Pickstock University of Cambridge
24 January 2023
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Mystagogy and the liturgical chronotope
Raymond Quek Norwich University of the Arts
22 February 2023
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
The Fermented City
Tracey Winton University of Waterloo
7 March 2023
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Re-reading Museo Castelvecchio: Behind the Scenes with Carlo Scarpa
Peter Newby St Mary’s University College
18 April 2023
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
From Santa Sabina to St Margaret’s through Velarde: Finding Beauty in tradition as ritual and setting
Matthew Barac
London Metropolitan University
24 April 2023
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Affirmative Irony in City Making: Practising the Afropolitan Future
2021/22
Kenneth Frampton Columbia University
19 October 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Megaform as Urban Landscape: Reflections on the Introspective City
Elizabeth Theokritoff Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge
26 October 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
A world of worship: creaturely activity as praise of God
José Mateus ARX Portugal
09 November 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
The Dialogue of Times
José Manuel Fernandes Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon
17 November 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Nova Oeiras Neighbourhood Unit, a modern urban settlement of 1950-60s Portugal
José de Paiva Eric Parry Architects
23 November 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Image and Likeness
Rut Blees Luxemburg Royal College of Art
08 December 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
The Lesson of the Vine: a public artwork in Leiwen
Simon Goldhill University of Cambridge
14 December 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Epiphany and disruption
Christian Frost London Metropolitan University
19 January 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Festival and the Architecture of Transition
Michael Lang Cong. Orat.
25 January 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Transcending beauty: a search for criteria of sacred architecture
Nicholas Temple London Metropolitan University
08 February 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Renovatio Urbis, Succession and the ‘Architecture of Hurry’
Philip Sheldrake Westcott House, Cambridge
15 February 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
The Beauty of Place
Peter Carl London Metropolitan University
1 March 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Ugly Truth, Ideal Beauty?
Dagmar Motycka Weston University of Edinburgh
15 March 2022
1pm New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
The Living Memory of Cities:
Roman theatre’s scænæ frons as a thematic edifice
Fabio Barry Stanford University
29 March 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin
Presence, Person, Beauty:
Why Round Temples?
All online talks are free. If you wish to attend, please click here to Subscribe.
