"Architecture Without Delay," Presented by David Leatherbarrow
David Leatherbarrow will present "Architecture Without Delay" as part of the Quickness: On Rhythms of Time in Contemporary Architecture, Five College Symposium on October 3, 2024 at 4:00 pm in the Design Building Lecture Hall (170). Learn more about the symposium here.
Three distinct kinds of architectural time will be outlined at the start of this study: the time of the world, its seasons and cycles, the time of the human body, as it moves through built and unbuilt settings, and the time of the architectural project, from conception to construction, then renovation to ruin. Only the second—the time of spatial movement and inhabitation—will be examined with respect to quickness. A difficult methodological premise will guide the study: avoiding the familiar and rather obsessive focus on the human experience of architectural works, as if meaning-for-me or you were all that mattered. With the perceiving subject decentered, the aim will be to describe and interpret not only the things that buildings and their settings themselves do to sustain experience, but more importantly the work’s participation in the wider environment that enlivens it. Quickness in architectural operations will not be viewed as a matter of speed or velocity only. It will also be seen in the several ways that walls, rooms, and streets can be unhesitatingly yielding, directly communicative, and tersely economical. Architectural ease and aptitude will be described, alacrity rather than acceleration will be the chief concern. Learn more about this talk.
David Leatherbarrow, PhD has taught theory and design at UPenn since 1984, and before that at Cambridge University and the University of Westminster (formerly PCL) in England. He lectures throughout the world and has held honorary professorships in Denmark, Brazil, and China. In 2020, Dr. Leatherbarrow was awarded the Topaz Medallion, the highest award given by the AIA and ASCA for excellence in architectural education. In prior years, he was also the recipient of the Visiting Scholar Fellowship from the Canadian Center of Architecture (1997-98) and two Fulbright Fellowships. Books include: Building time: architecture, event, and experience, 20th Century Architecture; Three Cultural Ecologies (with R. Wesley); Architecture Oriented Otherwise; Topographical Stories; Surface Architecture (with Mohsen Mostafavi); Uncommon Ground; The Roots of Architectural Invention; and On Weathering: The Life of Buildings in Time. His research focuses on history and theory of architecture, gardens, and the city.