The Five College Architecture symposium, Multiplicity: Agency, Constraint, and Freedom in Contemporary Architecture, took place on September 30th and October 1st, 2022 in the atrium of the Design Building. Instigated by Associate Professor Pari Riahi, and co-convened by Riahi, Laure Katsaros and Michael T. Davis, “Multiplicity” investigated the forces that generate uncertainty and change in contemporary architecture by studying the vectors of agency, constraint, and freedom. This ongoing theoretical investigation of contemporary architecture unfolds in three acts: the “Exactitude” symposium was held virtually in October 2020, “Multiplicity” took place in September of 2022, and “Quickness” is projected for September 2024.
We are grateful for the participation of the scholars who shared their research and ideas with us.
In Intersecting Visions: The New, the Preserved, and the Adapted Urban(s), Kristi Cheramie, Rahul Mehrotra, and Charles Waldheim pondered upon ways to strike a balance between the local and the global, the individual and collective.
In Affirming Forces: Race, Ethnicity, and Power, Esra Akcan, David Theodore, Charles Davis II wondered about architecture’s potential to imagine better modes of inhabitation and asked how this enormous potential may contribute to a more equitable, just, and harmonious society.
In Novel Methodologies and Processes: Theories for an Expanded Practice, Ana Miljački, Jesse Reiser, Jenny Sabin expanded on how for each of them architecture strives to be engaged and innovative and elaborated on processes and methodologies that are instrumental in keeping that fine balance.
In Overlapping Spheres: Environmental Humanities and the Built Environment, Lucia Allais, Aleksandra Jaeschke, Sanford Kwinter and Jennifer Mack reflected on how different disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences influence and enrich architecture.