The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism: Critical Encounters between Giorgio Agamben and Architecture

Join the author Camillo Boano (Director, MSc Building and Urban Design in Development at the DPU and Co-Director, UCL Urban Laboratory) for the launch of The Ethics of a Potential Urbanism: Critical Encounters between Giorgio Agamben and Architecture (Routledge, 2017).

Camillo will present his work on the traces and potentials of an 'inoperative architecture', a 'destituent' way of dealing with architecture and urban design. In the effervescent contemporary moment of thinking ethics in architecture confronting with crisis, post-truths and political abandonment, the talk would reflect on the gaps created by the "missing encounters" between radical philosophy, urban design and architecture. The Ethics of Potential Urbanism: Critical Encounters between Giorgio Agamben and Architecture, highlights the substantial possibilities of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben's work for a renewed perspective on architectural and design practice in a time of neoliberal consensus and uncritical acceptance of the nature of life and society. Camillo will be discussing with a number of guests the contents of the book.

This event is part of the London Festival of Architecture 2017, which runs from 1 - 30 June. It is organised by The Bartlett Development Planning Unit at UCL and sponsored by the UCL Urban Laboratory. Drinks reception will follow.

• No booking necessary
• Download the poster (pdf)

Speakers:

Douglas Spencer is the author of The Architecture of Neoliberalism (2016). He teaches and writes on critical theories of architecture, landscape and urbanism at the Architectural Association and at the University of Westminster, London. A regular contributor to Radical Philosophy, he has also written chapters for collections such as Architecture Against the Post-Political Nadir Lahiji (2014) and This Thing Called Theory  (2016), and published numerous essays in different journals

Peg Rawes is Professor in Architecture and Philosophy, Programme Director of the MA Architectural History at The Bartlett School of Architecture. Her research and teaching focus on material, political, technological and ecological histories and theories of contemporary architecture and art. She is one of the authors of the film Equal by Design (2016) and one of the editors of Poetic Biopolitics: Practices of Relation in Architecture and the Arts (co-ed., 2016)

Haim Yacobi is an architect who specialized in urban studies and politics. His academic work focuses on colonial geography, architecture and planning in Israel\Palestine as well as on social justice and urban space. In 1999 he formulated the idea of establishing "Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights" and NGO that deals with human rights and planning in Israel and was its co-founder.