FORUM 03:

CRITICAL FUTURES #3

A debate on the future of architecture criticism

 

Storefront is pleased to invite you to the third event in a three-part series of debates on the future of architecture criticism organized by Domus that have previously taken place in London and Milan.

 

Over the past decade, several transformations regarding media and communication systems, among others, have reshaped the context within which architecture is conceived and debated.

 

The Internet has made images and information free and instantly ubiquitous; magazines, once the undisputed platforms for the criticism of architecture and design, have been challenged to redefine their purpose and economic model in the light of dwindling readerships; blogs have given a global audience, potentially of millions, to anyone with an Internet connection. In all of this, the continued relevance of architecture criticism as practiced today has been put in doubt: as Alexandra Lange writes, “Online, both everyone and no one is a critic, and architecture talk proliferates, often in the absence of buildings.”

 

Is criticism in the traditional sense still relevant or useful, and can it be more than the legitimation of the new? If the role of the print publication in contemporary production irreversibly declines, what is its future? Will online publishing (from press-release feed blogs to the few bastions of criticism online sites) ever be able to fill this void? 

 

Participants:

Justin Davidson (architecture critic, New York magazine)
Eva Franch i Gilabert (Director, Storefront for Art and Architecture)
Alexandra Lange (journalist and critic, Design Observer)
Shannon Mattern (Department of Media Studies & Film, The New School)
Kazys Varnelis (Netlab, Columbia University GSAPP)
Lebbeus Woods (architect and blogger)

Mimi Zeiger (Writer and founder of Loud paper)

 

Moderated by Joseph Grima – Editor, Domus