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

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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

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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”

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Níall McLaughlin  Níall McLaughlin Architects

15 November 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
“Old Timber to New Fires”

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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

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Biba Dow Dow Jones Architects

6 December 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
Quiet Marvels

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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

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Catherine Pickstock University of Cambridge

24 January 2023
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
Mystagogy and the liturgical chronotope

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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

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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

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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

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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

Microsoft Teams Link


 

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

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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

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José Mateus  ARX Portugal
09 November 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

The Living Memory of Cities:
The Dialogue of Times

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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

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José de Paiva Eric Parry Architects
23 November 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
Image and Likeness

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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 

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Simon Goldhill  University of Cambridge
14 December 2021
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
Epiphany and disruption

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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

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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

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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’

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Philip Sheldrake  Westcott House, Cambridge
15 February 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
The Beauty of Place

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Peter Carl  London Metropolitan University
1 March 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
Ugly Truth, Ideal Beauty?

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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

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Fabio Barry  Stanford University
29 March 2022
12 noon New York / 5pm London / 6pm Berlin

Presence, Person, Beauty:
Why Round Temples?

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