Designing Present World(s)

How does architecture transform life’s reality and society? What does it mean to live in the world? Against the backdrop of the Bauhaus legacy, the conference will explore the concepts and practices of contemporary world design: architects, artists, authors, architectural and cultural scientists will address the problems of European modernity’s transformations. In lectures, talks and artistic presentations, they will explore the possibilities of a new universality for today’s outdated claims of universalism and post-colonial criticism. What is the relationship between presence and social progress? What role does storytelling play in the latest spatial designs? What is relational architecture? Can (bi-)national representation institutions become tools of transnational culture?

With the authors and artists Priya Basil, Onyeka Nwelue, Zvi Efrat, the architectural and cultural theorists Donatella Fioretti, Jan Friedrich, Franck Hofmann, Andres Lepik, Markus Messling, Ita Heinze-Greenberg and the globalization sociologist Teresa Koloma Beck, conceived by Franck Hofmann

The conference will open on December 12 at 9.30am with the panel On Philosophy and Politics of Architecture at the Centre Marc Bloch (Friedrichstraße 191, 10117 Berlin). This will be followed by the panels To Know about World. Transfer and Transformations of Modernity at 2pm and To Build, A Story. Architectures for Relationality at 7pm with the lecture by Andres Lepik at HKW). The program will continue on December 13 at the Centre Marc Bloch with the panel Unrecognized Heritage. Contemporaneity and Social Progress at 9.30am and will conclude with the discussion One Year 100 Years Bauhaus. From National Representation to Transcultural Institutions?

In cooperation with the Centre Marc Bloch (An-Institut of the HU Berlin) and the Martin Buber Society of Fellows (Jerusalem). Funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research