[mscp] Phil/Arch Series: Leon van Schaik, Thu 10 March

[Esther Anatolitis]

MSCP Philosophy and Architecture public program
in conjunction with the School of Architecture and Design at RMIT
present the first evening of the series:

Prof. Leon van Schaik: POETICS AND ARCHITECTURE
7:30pm Thursday, 10 March
RMIT 5.3.01 (building 5 Bowen lane, level 3, theatre 01)
ALL WELCOME

As an architect whose concerns are about innovation in my domain, my
interest in Bachelard hinges around the exhortation: “Jean Wahl wrote:
‘the frothing of the hedges I keep deep within me.’ Thus we cover the
universe with drawings we have lived. Each one of us then should speak
of his roads and his roadside benches.” The need for this is exemplified
when Bachelard asserts: “The house is a vertical being.” I still recall
the shock I felt reading this for the first time, a deep internal
protest from a consciousness formed in the southern hemisphere, where a
house is a horizontal being. Patrick Heron used to talk about ‘the shape
of colour’. I have worked on ‘the sound of space’. Allan Powell,
designer of the award winning TarraWarra Museum of Art, is concerned
with ‘states of mind’ that people can be induced to enter. What are
architects doing to our personal histories when – unlike Allan Powell –
they design without being aware of their own histories in space? In
Bachelard’s Poetics can we find a way of addressing this?

PROFESSOR LEON VAN SCHAIK is Innovation Professor of Architecture at
RMIT. He works internationally with practitioners who have established
mastery in their field, engaging them in critical review of the nature
of their mastery, its enabling structures, its knowledge bases, and the
implications of the nexus between these for emerging forms of research
led practice. His latest book, Mastering Architecture: becoming a
creative practitioner is published in February by Wiley Academy.

HELD ON THE SECOND THURSDAY of each month at 7:30pm at RMIT, the
Philosophy and Architecture program provides a unique opportunity for a
space of exchange to be created between the two disciplines. While what
we provide is a local space – Melbourne philosophers and Melbourne
architects on Melbourne issues – the Philosophy and Architecture program
welcomes speakers from any discipline who engage with questions of
contemporary urbanism, planning, technology, space, system, design,
distribution and other issues in the productive overlap between the two
disciplines. We are expecting a diverse range of presentations and
presenters, from research students and established academics to
architecture and planning practitioners, policy makers, public artists
and those working in the world between theory, buildings and the city.
Papers of under 40mins are solicited and there will be plenty of time
for discussion.

BOOKMARK the Philosophy and Architecture page
http://www.mscp.org.au/architecture.htm