Scientific Researcher (w. PhD) / Senior Lecturer
The Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design at the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), led by Prof. Tom Avermaete, is seeking a highly motivated and qualified postdoctoral colleague. The successful candidate will join a dynamic team working on innovative research projects and educational approaches in the Mehr
Scientific Researcher (w. PhD) / Senior Lecturer
70%, Zurich, fixed-term | History and Theory of Urban Design.
Spielraum & Öffentlicher Raum (lecture) | Public Space: The Real and the Ideal (journal presentation)
21 February 2024, 17:30–19:00 | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, HIL E 4.
City of Codes
The city of Zurich is a testament to the incredible power of urban codes and their influence on urban form. From the mid-nineteenth onwards, these codes, such as building laws, norms, standards, or even municipal constitutions, shaped and reshaped the city into what it is today. The research Mehr
Symposium ‘Drawing the Urban’
16–17 November | USI, Accademia di Architettura, Mendrisio. This symposium will investigate the multiple ways in which recent and current urban conditions are represented, analysed, and informed, through drawings.
‘Baukultur und Recht’
Third Annual Colloquium Stiftung Baukultur | 8 November (ganztägig) | Aula Magna, University of Fribourg.
Symposium of Urban Design History and Theory (SUDHT)
1–3 November | Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.
Design Studios as «Communities of Tacit Knowledge»
Much of what architecture students learn in the studio is «tacit knowledge.» They develop the skills and sensibilities of architectural and urban design with practice, often under the supervision of instructors and peers, not by studying textbooks. Yet, despite its importance, we know relatively little about how this Mehr
La Norme d’Agadir – Un Urbanisme sur Mesure (Exhibition) & Agadir – Building the Modern Afropolis (Book Launch)
NEW: anytime after 25 June | Musée de la Reconstruction d’Agadir, Morocco, and online.
Writing Urban Landscapes of the Anthropocene
LUS Methodology Seminar, Spring Semester 2023. Fridays, 11:45-13:30 | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, HIL E 67.
History and Theory of Architecture VIII: Seen from the South
Guest lecture, 28.4., 13:45–15:30 | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, HIL E 9.
Tacit Knowledge in Architecture
Conference and exhibition «Unausgesprochenes Wissen / Unspoken Knowledge / Le (savoir) non-dit». 19-21 June 2023 | ETH Hönggerberg, Stefano-Franscini Platz 5, Zürich Tacit knowledge is a key characteristic of architecture culture.
Unlocking a Multidisciplinary Discourse on Architecture and the City
This research project sets out to develop a new methodology of crossing disciplinary perspectives with the goal of unlocking a multidisciplinary historiography of architecture. It is based on the conviction that something fundamentally new can be learned from the exchanges that architects have had with other disciplines.
Writing Landscapes, Writing the Urban
Methodology Seminar | Starting 22 September on Thursdays, 14:00 – 16:00 | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, Rote Hölle, HIL E67.
Repository
www.avermaete.repository.ethz.ch is an open repository for the chair’s education, research, and publication activities. Next to the chair’s Instagram account, the website informs and inspires students and professionals using graphic material and represents each team member. The website also contains a virtual exhibition space on, for example, the student Mehr
The City in Theory – Her Agency
This seminar follows the work and life of a series of «female professionals» (architects, politicians, urban designers, journalists, editors, curators, philanthropists, etc.) in the post-war era who started to critically engage in discussions on urban design and actively contribute to the design of cities. By fully acknowledging the contributions Mehr
Tête-à-Tête Lectures: Material Commons
9 March, 5 April, 3 May 2022 | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, HIT 31.1.
The City in Theory: Her Agency
Selected Thursdays 2022, 15:45 – 17:30 | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, HPT C 103.
Call for Lost Entries: Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition ARCHIVE
Did you participate in the Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition (1965-2020)? Help build an archive by submitting your competition entry.
Irrigation Commons: What Lessons for Sustainable Risk Mitigation?
Swiss agricultural commons have overseen the management of pastures, forests, and water in the Alps for centuries. In Canton Valais, the historic irrigation systems have shaped the cultural landscape of the region as a whole. The resilience of these channels rests in part on their ability to mitigate Mehr
Call for Lost Entries: The Shinkenchiku Residential Design Competition, 1965-2020
Exhibition: 3 November, starting 7:00, to 25 November 2021 | gta Exhibitions, ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg. This exhibition aims to initiate a discussion on the effect of incomplete archives on architectural research.
Histories of Urban Design: Global Trajectories and Local Realities
15-17 November 2021, registration by 17 September | Conference | ETH Zürich, Department of Architecture.
Baukultur und die Stadt
10. November 2021, 9:00 – 18.00 Uhr | Erste Jahrestagung der Stiftung Baukultur Schweiz | ETH Zürich, Werner Siemens Auditorium, Gebäude HIT, Wolfgang-Pauli-Stasse 27, 8093 Zürich.
The «Contact Zone» of Agadir’s 1960 Emergency Aid Programme
The reconstruction of the Moroccan city of Agadir in the immediate aftermath of the devastating 1960 earthquake is an exemplary yet much overlooked cross-cultural «contact zone» between local and international rescuers, experts, citizens, organizations, and governments. Studying why the development aid Morocco received was not unconditionally accepted, but Mehr
TACK Talks: How to? A Guide Through Knowing
18:00–19:00 | online. We aim to examine the notion of mediating tacit knowledge from different perspectives, in conversations between the cultural institutions Het Nieuwe Instituut, Vlaams Architectuurinsituut, and Architekturzentrum Wien.
Writing Model Histories
12 May, 10:00–13:00 | Colloquium | online. Invited Lecturers: Professor Dr. Thea Brejzek, School of Archi- tecture, University of Technology, Sydney; Professor Dr. Mari Lending, Oslo School of Architecture and Design; Dr. Matthew Wells, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta), ETH Zurich.
Writing Automobile Histories
Colloquium: 5 March, 15:00–18:00 | online. Workshop: 5 March, 18:30–20:30 | online. The colloquium aims to untie the specificity of car travel as a new episteme, addressing issues related to the emergence of the new perceptual regimes that emerged thanks to the automobile.
The View from the Car: Autopia as a New Perceptual Regime
30 March 2021 – 15 June 2021 Online exhibition | 15 September – 15 October 2021 Real space exhibition at the Baubibliothek, ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg.
Exploring Urban Scale Models
Urban scale models are crucial for communicating urban design ideas between various stakeholders, from those directly involved in a project – e.g. client, developer, contractor, municipality – to the broader public. However, our knowledge about this tool is limited. Understanding the shifting role of urban design from the Mehr
Co-opolis: The Collective Production of the City
Video now online! As urbanization intensifies all over the world, so do contestations over how city space is produced. Citizens, politicians, urban designers and architects become increasingly aware of the fact that the city can no longer be solely developed as the playing field of private interests or Mehr
Urban Design as Commoning: Remembering the History of Participation
Under the headers of ‘collaboration’, ‘participatory design’ and ‘co-production’ participation is nowadays at the centre of the debate on urban design. Architects and urban designers are developing new concepts, tools and roles to comply with these new participatory modi operandi. However, it seems that it is sometimes forgotten Mehr
The City Represented: Visions of Urban Living
14 May | 15:00–17:00 | Final Presentations Seminar | ETH Zurich Hönggerberg, HPT C 103 Lecturer: Dr. Cathelijne Nuijsink. This seminar takes a long-running international housing ideas competition from Japan to identify key topics in architecture culture.
Public Space: The Real and the Ideal
5th Biennial Conference of the International Society for the Philosophy of Architecture. 2 to 5 July 2021 | Monte Verità (near Locarno), Switzerland.
Call for Papers: Public Space – the Real and the Ideal
Call for papers by 6th January 2020. The aim of the conference is to stress ideas and ideals on public space, both in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, as well as in (political) philosophy, against the background of the continuous development of technology, from smart phone to smart Mehr
Collective Actors and the Production of the City: Urban Commons in Research
In her book Governing the Commons (1990), political economist and Nobel prize winner Elinor Ostrom identified spaces and infrastructures as ‘common resources’ fostered by groups of citizens in order to resist top-down governance and commodification. Today, the notion of the ‘urban commons’ appears as an index for historians Mehr
gta Invites
Four sessions on selected Wednesdays, 12:00–13:00 | ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HIL D 57.1 (gta Ausstellungen hall) | Lecture Series. The «gta Invites» lecture series brings guests from outside the gta institute in dialogue with members of its staff to discuss forms and methods of research, and other frameworks for the organization of Mehr
Methodological Workshop: Writing Commons Histories
9 October, 14:00–16:00 | ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HIL D 75.1 | By registration only. This methodological workshop discusses how the historiography of the city could be articulated through the lens of citizen action and common resources. What sets of collective actors, both organized or informal, emerge as alternative topics of research? What methodological Mehr
Architects Don’t Build the «Oikos»
In many countries around the globe, the political landscape has been shaken by the rise of nationalist politics. With a right-wing agenda and emphasise on identity, it opposes the alleged left-wing elite. Newcomer to the tribe in The Netherlands is Thierry Baudet, who holds a PhD in legal Mehr
Summer School: Visualizing the Architecture Competition as «Contact Zone»
4-10 September | ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg campus, D-ARCH, gta Exhibitions This intensive international summer school investigates the «contact zone» as a new methodological tool to better understand the global-ness of architecture production. For one full week students work in a real exhibition venue (gta Exhibitions) to theorize and visualize Mehr
Tom Avermaete, Against Architectural Amnesia
Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete from the chair for History and Theory of Urban Design is now part of the NSL. Learn in our interview how he investigates the basis of the discipline, brings non-Western experiences to the spotlight, and provides a basis for dealing with contemporary urban issues.
Colloquium: Writing Global Histories
17 May 2019, 09:00–12:00 | ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HIT E 51 (Siemens-Auditorium). Convened by Tom Avermaete and Cathelijne Nuijsink. Our histories of urban design and architecture remain sur prisingly eurocentric, while important developments occur in other geographies. This colloquium explores the possibili ties of a more global perspective Mehr
Colloquium: Urban Commons: Exploring the Collective Architectural Resources of the City
3 April 2019, 09:30–15:30 | ETH Zurich, Hönggerberg, HIL E4. The architecture of the city has always been based on a set of common codes and conventions. Explicated in texts, drawings and models or tacitly defined as compositional principles, typological choices or construction modes, these codes and conventions Mehr
The City as Commons: A History of Architectural Codes and Convention
2 April 2019, 17:00–18:00 | ETH Zurich, Zentrum, Auditorium Maximum (HG F 30). Inaugural Lecture of Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete. The architecture of the city has always been based on a set of common codes and conventions. Explicated in texts, drawings and models or tacitly defined as compositional Mehr
Book launch: The Shopping Centre: A Malleable Type
13 March 2019, 17:00–19:00 | HIL H 40.4 (Plaza). To celebrate the publication of Acculturating the Shopping Centre and the softcover edition of Shopping Towns Europe, Prof. Margaret Crawford (UC Berkeley), Paul Robbrecht (Robbrecht en Daem architecten) and Thomas Volstorf (Riken Yamamoto; Field Shop) will give brief presentations Mehr