RCT // red corner talks

Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss born in1967, (Subotica) is an architect educated at Harvard University and Belgrade University. He recently collaborated with Herzog & de Meuron architects and is the founder of Normal Architecture Office as well as co-founder of School of Missing Studies, network for cultural and urban research. His recent book „Almost Architecture“, published by Merz&Solitude and kuda.nao explores the roles of architecture vis-à-vis democratic processes, abrupt political changes and architectural appearance of post-communist ideologies. He is an Assistant Professor at Tyler School of Art_Architecture at Temple University and lectures at Harvard GSD and at Penn School of Design. He is a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths College, University of London with a dissertation on the positive spatial aspects of Balkanization. He exhibited and lectured about his work at the universities and museums in Western Europe, North America and Japan and he published internationally. Andreas Rumpfhuber is Architect and Researcher with an office in Vienna, Austria. Andreas is member of the Researchers and Artists Collective roundtable.kein.org at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College in London, he was PhD-stipendiate (2005-2008) at the Center for Design Research at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen. His PhD-dissertation „Architecture of Immaterial Labour“ will be published in fall 2010 at TURIA+KANT. Andreas was lecturing and teaching amongst others at TU Vienna, TU Graz, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Goldsmiths College, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, he was curating a.o. „Schindler Lecture“ series (2004-2007) at the Austrian Society of Architecture (www.oegfa.at), the Conference „Politics of Designing“ at The Danish Doctoral Schools of Architecture & Design. He is regularly writing for the Vienna Street-Newspaper Augustin, as well as for divers international Architecture/Art magazines and journals such as: Springerin, Hefte für Gegenwartskunst, dérive, Zeitschrift für Stadtforschung, UmBau, Arkitekten, bauwelt.

Hermann Czech stu­dierte Architektur an der Tech­ni­schen Hoch­schule und in der Meis­ter­schule von Ernst Plischke an der Akademie der bil­den­den Künste in Wien. 1958 und 1959 war er Se­min­ar­teil­neh­mer bei Konrad Wachsmann an der Som­mer­aka­de­mie in Salz­burg. An der Akademie für an­ge­wandte Kunst in Wien war er von 1974 bis 1980 As­sis­tent bei Hans Hollein und Johannes Spalt, 1985/86 Gast­pro­fes­sor an der­sel­ben Hoch­schule. 1988/89 und 1993/94 war er Gast­pro­fes­sor an der Harvard University in Cambridge/USA, 2004-07 Gast­pro­fes­sor an der ETH Zürich. Sein un­gleich­ar­ti­ges ar­chi­tek­to­ni­sches Werk um­fasst Pla­nun­gen, Wohn-, Schul- und Ho­tel­bau­ten ebenso wie In­ter­ven­tio­nen in klei­nem Maß­stab und Aus­stel­lungs­ge­stal­tun­gen. Seine Pro­jekte haben star­ken Bezug zum Kon­text und be­inhal­ten be­wusst die vor­han­de­nen Wi­der­sprü­che. Ab den 1970er Jah­ren (»Architektur ist Hintergrund«) wurde Her­mann Czech zum Prot­ago­nis­ten einer neuen »stillen« Ar­chi­tek­tur, die »nur spricht, wenn sie ge­fragt wird«. Er ist Autor zahl­rei­cher kri­ti­scher und theo­re­ti­scher Pu­bli­ka­tio­nen zur Ar­chi­tek­tur. In sei­ner Theo­rie spie­len die Be­griffe Umbau und Manierismus eine zen­trale Rolle.

Professor Lars Lerup, Dean at the Rice School of Architecture, Rice University in Houston, Texas, writes on architecture, design, art and urbanism. Using predominantly field observation, Lerup relies on many disciplines for his continuously evolving point of view: sociology, philosophy, political theory, design theory and history. One of his main interests since his thesis at Harvard has been suburbanization and its architectural, urban and socio-economic consequences. Currently his work is concentrated on the proliferation of Suburbia, the possible existence of a “global suburbia” and the clash been progressivist notion of control and capitalist laisser-faire. Bart Lootsma (Amsterdam, 1957) is a historian, critic and curator in the fields of architecture, design and the visual arts. He is a Professor for Architectural Theory at the Leopold-Franzens University in Innsbruck and Guest Professor for Architecture, European Urbanity and Globalization at the University of Luxemburg. Before, he was Head of Scientific Research at the ETH Zürich, Studio Basel, and he was a Visiting Professor at the Academy of Visual Arts in Vienna; at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Nürnberg; at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and at the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam. He held numerous seminars and lectured at different academies for architecture and art in the Netherlands. Bart Lootsma was guest curator of ArchiLab 2004 in Orléans and he was an editor of ao. Forum, de Architect, ARCHIS and GAM. Bart Lootsma published numerous articles in magazines and books. Together with Dick Rijken he published the book ‚Media and Architecture’ (VPRO/Berlage Institute, 1998). His book ‘SuperDutch’, on contemprary architecture in the Netherlands, was published by Thames & Hudson, Princeton Architectural Press, DVA and SUN in the year 2000; ‘ArchiLab 2004 The Naked City’ by HYX in Orléans in 2004. Bart Lootsma is Board Member of  architektur und tirol in Innsbruck and reserve-member of the Council for Architectural Culture at the Cabinet of the Austrian Prime Minister in Vienna. was a member of several governemental, semi-governemmental and municipal committees in different countries, such as the Amenities Committee in Arnheim, the Rotterdam Arts Council, the Dutch Fund for Arts, Design and Architecture, Crown Member of the Dutch Culture Council, Member of the Expert Committee 11. International Architecture Biennale, Venice 2008, at the German Ministry for Building and Planning as well as curator of the Schneider Forberg Foundation in Munich.

Eyal Weizman is an Architect based in London. He studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London and completed his PhD at the London Consortium, Birkbeck College. He is the director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths College. roundtable.kein.org. Since 2007 he is a member of the architectural collective „decolonizing architecture“ in Beit Sahour/Palestine. Since 2008 he is a member of B‘Tselem board of directors. Weizman has taught, lectured, curated and organised conferences in many institutions worldwide. His books include The Lesser Evil [Nottetempo, 2009], Hollow Land [Verso Books, 2007], A Civilian Occupation [Verso Books, 2003], the series Territories 1,2 and 3, Yellow Rhythms and many articles in journals, magazines and edited books. CHRISTOPH PLANER IS A STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK. WHILE STUDYING ARCHITECTURE HE ALSO WORKED FOR NOX/LARS SPUYBROEK IN ROTTERDAM. HE IS A STUDENT ASISSTANT AT BART LOOTSMAS CHAIR OF ARCHITECTURAL THEORY AND CO PRODUCER OF THE RED CORNER TALKS.