Dialectic VIII: Subverting - Unmaking Architecture

The VIII issue of Dialectic asks the reader to imagine possible ways to subvert architecture. Or to employ architecture as means of subversion. In this issue seven articles from international authors and two guiding editorials invite the reader to reflect upon the various ways of how architecture, normally conceived of as expression of power and elites, undermines and undoes exactly this taken-for-granted affirmatively. Divided in three sections the articles in the first part explore lessons from scholarship and design from the ‘field school’ in Milwaukee, from social housing in Brussels, and from informal open-air bazars in Ukraine. Section two critiques instrumentalised architectural knowledge, such as sustainability and the medium of drawing, particularly from an indigenous perspective. Finally, section three wrestles with fundamental concepts of the architectural discipline, with the male, normalised, de-sexualised body and architecture’s relationship with the ground being two of the most fundamental ones.