Right to Architecture in Crisis

"Right to Architecture in Crisis" by Zenovia Toloudi

Abstract: Crisis comes with conflicts, instability, anxiety, and many other practical but also psychological problems. Democracy and freedom are often deteriorated to ensure stability; the public space disappears to allow the space of obedience to establish itself until the crisis dissolves. Recent movements, like the Occupy Movement, or Greece’s and Spain’s Indignants reacting to these conditions inhabit public space and transform it in a similar way to that of performing arts’ interventions. Based on the presumed relationship between dance (χορός/ khοrós) and space (χώρος/ chóros) as in the Ancient Greek Theater, the paper examines the possibility of performance to become crowd’s medium to participate in the production of architecture. More specifically performance within architecture is examined in the collaborative and interdisciplinary practice of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, who have been pioneers addressing architecturally the social, the body-politics, and surveillance-control problematics; the curatorial positions of Pedro Gadanho, in which performance implies participation; and the artistic work of Alex Schweder in which relationships between occupied spaces and occupying subjects are permeable. The paper eventually speculates a new type of architecture during crisis times that challenges the dysfunctional codes implied by the institutions, where the role of crowd is being redefined from the spectatorship to active engagement.