In 2009, the conference series explored the subject of modern living: what do the classical perceptions of Bauhaus and Modernism still have to teach us? How do modern principles still govern our lives?

The Bauhaus was not only committed to the individual work, the actual house or estate; in fact, through the functional design of these spaces, it focused on liberating life from the ballast of 19th century bourgeois culture: everyone should have the space and time required to evolve on a personal level. This, the Bauhaus’ promise, still holds true today.

The current economic and ecological crises bring a renewed focus to the question of modern living. For far too long, answers were sought only in the social and engineering sciences. “Lifestyle” was understood as the more or less individualised packaging of life. The avant-garde design principles of the Bauhaus have become highly successful commercial models in the process of modernisation, reaching a broad social sector. However, cultural globalisation, which is out of sync with economic globalisation, disrupts this correlation between modernity and economic modernisation: today, formal standardisation and individual diversity, “standard” and “elite”, are sorted according to an entirely new set of rules.

Speakers (according to timetable): Dieter Orzessek, Philipp Oswalt, Sokratis Georgiadis, Claude Lichtenstein, Harry Lehmann, Mechthild Schmidt, Sigrun Prahl, Gertrude Helm, Karin Bruns, Michael Mönninger, Julia Böge.

Publication being prepared

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Which concepts of structure are valid in the different sciences and the designing and building arts and how are they related? Which notion of intelligence is characteristic for each of them? In architecture and design, the scope of activity naturally is situated at the intersections of the sciences, technology, art and media. Therefore, researching the essential structures of these disciplines opens ways for a mutual understanding, especially in those cases, in which it might be read as a crystallization of characteristic operations. Using linguistics as a leading science, structuralism tried to lay open elementary structures of languages and relationships of cultural exchange. However, this cross-sectional approach was limited to the realm of its paradigm: language. No attempt was made although to establish bridges towards structural studies in natural sciences, technology, architecture and other designing disciplines. Without doubt, we may read even very straightforward objects as a table, a window, an electronic circuit, a net or a map as epistemic objects and as specific embodiments of intelligence. This approach becomes even compelling in those cases, in which these structures
belong to that specific arsenal of tools and media we use as outsourced human intelligence and with which we continuously interact.
As cognitive ability, intelligence continuously depends on structures, which emerge out of nature and life and are culturally recognized, transformed and transmitted as „made“, „built“ and „constructed“. The conference is starting here, asking about „The Intelligence of Structures“ as crystallization of characteristic operations and its interrelations towards natural science, cultural science, art and form.

Speakers (according to timetable): Omar Akbar, Johannes Kister, Joachim Krausse, Klaus P. Jantke, Gunnar Tausch, Ludger Hovestadt, Aron Temkin, Achim Menges, Michael Hensel, William Engelen, Reinhold Martin, Stephan Pinkau, Wolfgang Schäffner, Gui Bonsiepe.

Publication being prepared

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Wie produziert die postindustrielle Gesellschaft ihre Räume? Welche Folgen hat die Globalisierung von Orten für die Kultur und das Denken von Raum? Der Spatial Turn, die Wende zum räumlichen Denken in den Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften, zeigt einen Wandel in der Wahrnehmung von Räumen und Zeiten an. Nach der industriellen Epoche, in der die Probleme von Zeit und Geschichte bestimmend waren, leben wir nun in der Epoche des Raumes, in der Nähe und Ferne, das Nebeneinander und das Auseinander, in den Vordergrund rücken:
Die heutige Unruhe im Denken und Handeln betrifft also grundlegend den Raum und seine Territorien – vielmehr jedenfalls als Zeit und Geschichte, die für die modernen Dynamiken industrieller Gesellschaften charakteristisch waren. Es ist also kein Zufall, dass die Diagnosen der Gegenwart vornehmlich räumliche Begriffe aus den Bereichen der globalen Kulturen und der Geographie verwenden,
um das heutige Alltagsleben zu beschreiben. Auch die gestaltenden Disziplinen – wie Architektur, Stadtplanung und bildende Künste – diskutieren den Spatial Turn und seine Konsequenzen für die Raumgestaltung: Wie behaupten Orte ihre lokale Gestaltidentität gegen die globalen Raumansprüche? Welchen Einfluss hat die digitale Kultur auf die Wahrnehmung und Darstellung von Räumen? Welche Rolle spielt die zunehmende Bildlichkeit von Rauminszenierungen im Film und in der Architektur? Die Konferenz diskutiert solche Fragen vor dem Hintergrund der Theorien des französischen Philosophen und Stadtsoziologen Henri Lefêbvre, dessen Standardwerk „Die Produktion des Raumes“ 1974 in Paris erschien. Die Vorträge aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen analysieren Raumproduktionen aus den letzten drei Jahrzehnten, im Besondere  im Lichte des Spatial Turns.

Redner (nach Terminplan): Omar Akbar, Stephan Günzel, Jesko Fezer, Michael Müller, Kai Vöckler, Christian Schmid, Klaus Ronneberger, Alexander Klose, Andreas Ruby, Gesa Mueller von der Haegen, Charlotte Pöchhacker.

Publikation in Vorbereitung

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Architectural structures are of significant importance not only in its function as human habitat, but also for the development of modern media and information technologies.
The media in general and computer hardware and software engineering in particular rely on basic concepts of structuring and cultural techniques of spacing. The public uses the concept ´architecture´even far beyond the scale of building.  Although these fields are not primarily related to the art of building, they employ fundamental architectural models and metaphors.
The common use of information technologies not only influences our perception of space, time and scale: its impact on our daily life makes us to change our environment and, further on, makes us to rethink our understanding of structures, which we consider to be fundamental to architecture or the built environment. The conference will set up a dialogue about the transforming of architectural structures as well as the architectural structuring of media technologies. Their relationship becomes evident in crossover strategies in communication and design, that put this interdependence to the foreground.  As one result, grids, maps, brandings and imagings more and more overlay the real topographic patterns and gain rising impact on the built order of space

Speakers (according to timetable): Omar Akbar, Dieter Orzessek, Stephan Pinkau, Bernhard Siegert, Annett Zinsmeister, Joachim Krausse, Hans – Christian von Herrmann, Ursula Meseberg, Wolfgang Schäffner, Michael Mussotter, Tanja Diezmann, Angela Zumpe, Finn Geipel, Peter Magyar, Francesca Vidal, Torsten Blume, Walter Prigge, Angelika Schnell.

Publication available: ISBN 978-3-00-023640-2 at www.bauhausbuchladen.de

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The conference “Architecture of the Medial Spaces” inaugurated a series of lectures and discussions on the temporary foundations of design in all fields of application, named

“Bauhaus Lectures Dessau”

This conference series  is a cooperation of the Departments of Architecture and Design of the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences, Dessau and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.

It is part of the Dessau Summer School of Architecture.

Conception: Joachim Krausse, Stephan Pinkau, 2006.