Building Insights: Architectural modalities between craftmanship and city-making (1831 – 1914, 2020s)

Promotor: Lara Schrijver

By situating architecture between craftsmanship and the city, this research aims to provide architects with tools that encourage a holistic approach of the practical, symbolic and imaginary needs of contemporary urban settings. In order to do that, it follows a trajectory that begins from a critical historical assessment and moves through an ethnographical study, towards a synthesis that aspires to bridge theory and practice. Firstly, it attempts a comparative historical inquiry on the architectural discourse that radiated from the city of Vienna during the transition from the 19th to the 20th century, in comparison to the urban realities and the cultural tensions running through the periphery of the Habsburg Empire. Secondly, the concepts brought in by historical inquiry are put to the test of practice, through an immersion in the everyday life of three practices: an architectural office in Ghent, a cultural institution in Vienna and a craftsmanship collective in Greece, are the sites of a threefold ethnographical research. Thirdly, it works on an assemblage of the findings of historical and empirical research towards the disclosure of what we could describe as intercrossing modalities of craftsmanship, architecture and the city.

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