New Monuments: KAM Workshops 2013, Call for participants

KAM Workshops in-situ 2013, New Monuments, will explore architecture’s ability to form propositions through buildings. Monumental architecture in the 20th century was largely rejected as a static and conventional reference to a dead past that blocked the possibility of creating flexible spaces. It was opposed to the idealized concept of “life”. Nevertheless these two concepts of life and the monument, movement and immobilization are only opposed because they interact by defining one another through an infinite reflexion. The workshop New Monuments will focus on this relation through the question of writing. Material writing deserves a further study, especially today, as the proliferation of built environments that are presented as deprived of any particular significance or meaning except their functionality leaves the question of writing unaddressed. Whether ‘form follows function’ according to Sullivan’s statement or whether buildings produce Venturi's advertisement-like monuments, architecture’s writings are confronted - after the civilization of advertisement- with a different type of reading. Writing will be examined, in Chania, as a form of architectural materiality that designates an important area of investigation. KAM Workshops bring together, every year, practitioners, academics and students of architecture, fine arts and cultural studies for an intensive studio. www.kamworkshops.com