Yale Architecture Forum
Isabelle Doucet
Resistant Architecture: (Hi)stories that Make a Difference
Drawing from concrete instances of resistant architectures after 1968, this lecture will discuss the wider methodological relevance of situated modes of inquiry for architecture, and will also ask: how can such situated (hi)stories of resistance also make a difference? In exploring the different tools mobilised by architects in London, Brussels, and Montreal to respond to urban struggles of the 1970s, this lecture will show the importance to study architecture across registers that are often places in opposition: politics and aesthetics, ideology and pragmatism, grassroots politics and cultural regeneration.
Isabelle Doucet is professor of architectural theory and history at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. Previously she taught at the University of Manchester, Manchester School of Architecture. Her books include The Practice Turn in Architecture. Brussels after 1968 (2015) and the co-edited volume Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production in Architecture and Urbanism (2011, with N. Janssens). She recently co-edited the thematic issue “Resist Reclaim Speculate. Situated Perspectives on Architecture and the City” (Architectural Theory Review, 2018, with H. Frichot). Isabelle is currently also a researcher for the Mellon Multidisciplinary Research Project called Architecture and/for the Environment, coordinated by the Canadian Centre for Architecture.