Rating architecture: love it or hate it

Each time a new building pops up in Brisbane, dinner table conversations, blogs and radio talkback programs come to life with candid criticism and appreciation of architecture.

In July, Brisbane residents will get the chance to engage in architecture criticism through a series of events headlined by speaker and author John Birmingham and top international guests.

The Writing Architecture events include public talks, workshops for photographers and writers, and a symposium held on 22-23 July at the Gallery of Modern Art and the State Library of Queensland.

Convenor Dr Naomi Stead, from UQ’s School of Architecture, said Writing Architecture aimed to help to broaden the conversation and make architecture accessible to everyone.

“Although architecture is the most popular art of all, being used by most Queenslanders every single day, there is little corresponding popular discussion about what people expect, hope for, and aspire to in their built environment,” Dr Stead said.

“This also means that there is a lack of sensible and informed public criticism of architecture – the discussion too often degenerates to ‘I don’t like it’ or ‘it’s ugly’, without a good understanding of why people don’t like it, how it’s ugly, and importantly, how it could be better.”

“One of the key intentions of the event is to bring together the public, practising architects, specialist architecture critics and scholars, who are all keenly interested in architecture, but who rarely get to talk to one another about it.”

Dr Stead said John Birmingham would be a popular drawcard and would be an ideal speaker from outside the architecture profession, as there was a strong evocation of place in his novels and essays.

“John Birmingham is the perfect person to speak about place more broadly – the conference is certainly not only about buildings, but architecture understood much more broadly – as the spaces and places where we live our lives.”

Dr Stead said although there were many people interested in architecture and place, they did not feel able to critique the built environment due to the specific and sometimes exclusionary language and abstract concepts used by architecture experts.

The first of the three public talks will be keynote speaker, Professor Katja Grillner from Sweden, who is one of the world’s foremost thinkers and writers on the subject of experimental writing about architecture, site and place.

Photography buffs will enjoy the second public talk by photographer Gavin Hipkins who will explore how photography critically documents architecture and spatial relationships.

Other papers at the conference, which were chosen after an open international call for papers, relate to architecture libraries, architecture in the work of David Malouf, the editing of an architecture journal, and mobile technologies as a new way of understanding architecture within the city.

Writing Architecture is made possible with financial assistance from the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Other event supporters include the Institute for Modern Art, ArchitectureMedia, UQ Art Museum, Queensland Writers Centre, Australian Institute of Architects, State Library of Queensland and the Creative Industries Unit in the Queensland Government through the HEAT program.

For more information about Writing Architecture, visit http://www.uq.edu.au/atch/writingarchitecture

PUBLIC TALKS

• Professor Katja Grillner, Professor in Critical Studies in Architecture, KTH Stockholm
‘Shifting Place Perceptions – Performative Modes of Site Writing’
Thursday July 22, 6-7pm, The State Library of Queensland.
Tickets: $10 adult /$5 concession through qtix

• Gavin Hipkins, artist and photographer, Auckland, New Zealand
'I’m There Right Now: Occupying Architectural Spaces Photographically'
Friday July 23, 9.30-10.30am, The State Library of Queensland
Free event

• John Birmingham, author and essayist, Brisbane, Australia
'Narrative and personal space. Turning history into architecture.'
Friday July 23, 6-7pm, The State Library of Queensland
Tickets: $10 adult /$5 concession through qtix

Media: Dr Naomi Stead at the School of Architecture at n.stead@uq.edu.au or Kim Jensen at the Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology on k.jensen@uq.edu.au or 07 3365 1107.