THEORY IN THE ROUND

In New York Review of Architecture SKYLINE no. 108 Occupational Anxiety. March 2023.

The This Is Not Contemporary conference held last week at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture, was the first one organized by director Florencia Rodriguez. The two-day event—structured in three discussions encompassing pedagogy, practice, and criticism (viewable online)—centered around Giorgio Agamben’s 2009 essay, “What Is the Contemporary?” For the most part, the roundtable discussions readily acknowledged the ambiguity and fluidity inherent in the keyword, which, apropos of Agamben’s original definition (“a way of being in the present”), is caught between the uncertainty of the future and the reality of the past. But another competing theme emerged over the course of the event—that of the “audience,” or the entity for whom the work of the architect or historian is ultimately meant to serve. The subject was litigated by many of the participants—six resident faculty and six external theorists, educators, and practitioners—with some contrasting terms such as “the audience” and “the public.” Rodriguez later attempted to clarify matters: “We’ve mentioned this [distinction] many times, and sometimes [the terms are] overlapping. Maybe, with the ‘contemporary,’ that’s a productive misunderstanding.”

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