Nine appointments, eight months, more than thirty guests participating in person, countless questions and interventions from the Planetary Cohort of Respondents dialled in from over fifty countries alongside dozens of students and faculty to consider societal, environmental, and bodily urgencies: AFFIRMATIONS is about the political role of architecture.
KOOZBefore talking about AFFIRMATIONS, I’d like to know more about how you got here, and really what led you to conceive a series of discussions in the first place.
BART-JAN POLMANI was trained as an architect at Delft University of Technology, in a typical European Polytechnic environment.The model is quite different from the U.S.: at eighteen, you effectively decide to become an architect and start that education. At large, Delft was characterised by a fairly conventional and dogmatic understanding of what an architect should do; a particular kind of humanist functionalism still loomed large with an older generation of professors, still very much shaped by Team X. There were also some pockets of intensity — for instance at the postgraduate Delft School of Design, and in places such as the nearby Berlage Institute — that organised amazing talks and conversations and really sparked aninterest in theory and history, opening a window onto other architectural possibilities.
A month after I graduated, the school of architecture — this incredible building by Jo van den Broek and Jaap Bakema — sadly burned down to the ground. Luckily no one was hurt, but it was quite the symbolic way to end one’s studies. In any case, I was lucky to receive a commission right around that time, and for a while ran my own firm with a close friend. A Fulbright scholarship allowed me to study at Columbia GSAPP, which is how I ended up in New York. I worked for a few years in Bernard Tschumi’s office. I also started teaching and did a lot of curatorial work while there — most extensively on Tschumi’s retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in 2014 and co-curatingexhibitions on Tschumi’s work in Shanghai and in Basel. Since then, my work has consisted of a combination of research through my PhD at Princeton University; teaching at Pratt, Barnard, Columbia and other places; writing and curatorial work. The latterincludes a large research project I did for MoMA and the exhibition Liquid La Habana1, together with Beatriz Colomina and Ivan Lopez Munuera at Princeton, which proposed a more fluid understanding of five modernist architectural projects in Cuba.
AFFIRMATIONS Poster as part of the graphic identity designed by Nick Sheeran.
KOOZ Did you quit design?
B-JPTo an extent, yes — in the sense that I don’t often actively design anymore. But I’m not sure if those disciplinary distinctions are still relevant, or if they ever were. My work is fully embedded in design through the programming, research, and exhibition work that I do, and I still sometimes teach design studios in conjunction with history or theory classes. I often collaborate with friends on design issues. So, I don't see myself as giving up that activity; it’s simply more distributed, being part of a larger ecosystem that architecture is.My research is not tied to a single medium, so design is still there but so are many other things.
KOOZ What is your doctoral research about?
B-JP I'm researching the discourse and output of a number of architects active in the Netherlands from the end of World War II until the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, in the early 1970s. I'm interested in their work as it relates the shaping of a new global economic order and, more specifically, what it meant in the Dutch postcolonial context after Indonesia’s independence. While the Netherlands was building a welfare state at home, it simultaneously sought to reposition itself globally through big Dutch or semi-Dutch multinational companies — now best known as Shell, Philips, and AkzoNobel — effectively to make up for the loss of Empire. Similarly, a lot of the Dutch interest in European integration and the common market can also be explained through a postcolonial lens. In my project, I try to rethink what really constitutes the architectural welfare state, in a way that accounts for and recognises business interests, European Integration and Indonesian independence as being fully intersected. Central to this is that in the early 1950s, a specific ideology already began manifesting itself and influencing certain architects: we could describe this as a sort of proto-neoliberalism. This does not mean that those architects were neoliberals in the sense we understand the word today, but one can already see the clear emergence of the notion that a free market is a solution for problems of a social nature, and this had architectural repercussions.
KOOZ So by your claim, the Netherlands was a laboratory for global politics and economics, which inevitably affected architecture.
B-JP The work is about an understanding of the Netherlands through its business interests, rather than as a political project of the welfare state. To be sure, those business interests were also very much of a political project. The logic of the marketas being a solution to problems of a social nature, was much more prescient than is commonly thought. Whether it’s in the Benelux, the European common market, or the global marketplace for these Dutch multinational companies. My project tries to untangle the ways in which this reality has informed architectural discourse and production, by numerous actors active in the period.
GSAPP Dean Andrés Jaque and I tried to radically rethink the school’s lecture series; this eventually became AFFIRMATIONS, which we developed together. AFFIRMATIONS was conceived as a project that really needs to be understood in its totality.
KOOZ This leads to what you’re doing here at Columbia GSAPP, where, this year, you launched this incredible programme of conversations, AFFIRMATIONS. How did that come about and how is it differentiated from other conversations dealing with similar concerns?
B-JP At GSAPP I am responsible for exhibitions and public programs and curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery. While the role is new — in the sense that it combines the curation of the gallery with the public programming of the school at large — it also goes back to some of the original ideas of the gallery, which was actually founded to host exhibitions tied to large symposiums. When I started, GSAPP Dean Andrés Jaque2 and I tried to radically rethink the school’s lecture series; this eventually became AFFIRMATIONS, which we developed together.
Several points were important at the outset. First of all, we identified a number of topics that the project would need to cover; topics which we deemed incredibly urgent and that should also be understood as fully intersected. This is to say that AFFIRMATIONS was not conceived as a lecture series, but as a project that really needs to be understood in its totality.3 The topics included futurisms, climate, indigenousness, ecology, more-than-human, decolonization, queer and trans, and the societal. These topics were then explored in a total of 9 sessions, such as Anchored Futurisms, with T.J. Demos and Olalekan Jeyifous; Material Ecologies with Mireia Luzárraga, Fuminori Nousaku and Mio Tsuneyama; Decolonizations with Denise Ferreira da Silva, Sandi Hilal, and Alessandro Petti; Societal Accountabilities with Eyal Weizman and David Wengrow; and Queer-Trans Eco-Territorial-Bodiments with Marquis Bey, Cassils, and Jack Halberstam, among others. All these sessions had interlocutors consisting of faculty as well as GSAPP guests, such as Filipa Ramos, Keller Easterling, and Albena Yaneva.
We were convinced that in order for this all to work, the project had to follow an entirely new format that reflected the nature of its content.
We were convinced that in order for this all to work, the project had to follow an entirely new format that reflected the nature of its content. A crucial component of this was that we wanted the speakers to be in-person, and that we simultaneously wanted to open it up on a global or planetary level rather than it being confined within the school’s auditorium. This is why we established the ‘Planetary Cohort of Respondents,’ a selected group of participants ranging from students to highly established academics who were chosen through an open call and that participate remotely from all continents and no less than 55 countries. We always send readings from the speakers in advance, and the cohort can submit questions out of which we make a selection. It's a fantastic way to broaden the project, as attendees don’t just go to a lecture and then react to whatever is being said; rather, they can anticipate precise questions, which is something that has worked incredibly well. Of course, Covid allowed for many of the technological changes that facilitate these hybrid conversations. At the same time, time-zones are a real thing and it always amazes me how many people participate during what must be some pretty uncomfortable hours.
KOOZ Indeed — I was in Hong Kong during the first AFFIRMATION and as a member of the Planetary Cohort, woke up before 6 am to attend! Let's talk about the story: what is AFFIRMATIONS about?
B-JP AFFIRMATIONS is, at its outset, about identifying possibilities. It’sabout affirming the speakers’ position with regards to a specific topic, and about opening up the conversation for the possible reworlding of societies and ecosystems by including non-hegemonic, non-human, and marginalised voices. With an emphasis on the built environment it explores, through a multitude of lenses, what might emerge from the collapsing systems and structures of anthropocentrism, carbonisation, colonisation, inequality, patriarchy, racialisation and technocracy. To the extent that AFFIRMATIONS is a project of critique, it would be of critiques that become operational and opens up a space for alternate futures. In case there is any doubt, this is not a project of scientific techno-determinism — let’s call that the ”smart city” approach. Rather, it is about possible futures that fundamentally learn from a multitude of different pasts, and are embedded within these, across multiple temporalities. That’s why we started the series with a session we called Anchored Futurisms with Olalekan Jeyifous and TJ Demos. Their work is very much based on the possibility for future forms of solidarity that are simultaneously rooted in various pasts. Demos calls this an ecology of connectedness. This is precisely the temporal interplay of which AFFIRMATIONS aims to be a part. Now that the series is reaching its conclusion, it is wonderful to see the connections that start to emerge between the different sessions.
AFFIRMATIONS is about identifying possibilities. It’s about affirming the speakers’ position with regards to a specific topic, and about opening up the conversation for the possible reworlding of societies and ecosystems by including non-hegemonic, non-human, and marginalised voices.
KOOZ Absolutely, there are several clear connections. AFFIRMATIONS also seems more to raise questions than answers. It is relevant because, in a time of societal and environmental change, we have to point to topics we don't know yet. Through the series, it seems that we must understand what questions we should ask and be open to the possible answers, in order to build a critical approach.
B-JP You are pointing out something crucial here. I don’t think affirming one’s position can be seen as separate from identifying the questions that need to be asked. So those things are intricately connected and this permeates through the series at large. We don’t claim to have the answers, let alone do we tell people what to do.
KOOZ Obviously, there are discussions where I’ve found many answers. As architects, we know that architecture is frequently a capitalist tool that perpetuates colonialism, racism, pollution, and other problematic issues; often, it is a real estate commodity. Consequently, we are beginning to understand what we shouldn't do when designing the built environment. However, we don't always know what we might do, and we need to understand it and not freeze the practice. Considering that Columbia GSAPP has several programs, some accredited for licensure and some not because they teach architectural criticism and research, what is the role of AFFIRMATIONS in the school’s pedagogy?
B-JP AFFIRMATIONS reflects the school’s commitment to anticipating change, which in many ways defines the school’s pedagogy. It is about the built environment at-large, and the series reflects many more programmes than architectural design — including planning, urban design, preservation and so on. Now, anticipating change is of course very different from describing how one should do things, and I think this is where your earlier point of raising questions returns. At the same time, it is about identifying possibilities. I think it is pretty clear that we are living at a moment of intense change and transformation, in which systems are breaking; as a result, many dead ends become visible. Identifying the possibilities that emerge from these cracks is precisely what AFFIRMATIONS is about, and I would like to think that it would inform student work regardless of the programme from which they are graduating, as these fields are overlapping and intersecting in various ways.
AFFIRMATIONS reflects the school’s commitment to anticipating change, which in many ways defines the school’s pedagogy. It is about the built environment at-large, and the series reflects many more programmes than architectural design.
KOOZ This makes me think about a big shift from the past: design, from the scale of the building to the city, was intended and taught as architectural composition, signifying a formal process applying rules about geometry and genius loci. Today, we still understand the built environment as a composition but it’s about systems and processes.
B-JP Yes, I think you’re absolutely right in that composition is still fundamental to our field, but in an understanding that differs quite radically fromthe way it has been taught in most traditional schools of architecture. The composition of society or ecology itself is now at stake, with architecture understood as one of many participants. When a building is now described through its architectural details as a set of ecological contracts — as has happened with the work of Fuminori Nousaku and Mio Tsuneyama who presented in AFFIRMATION 2: Material Ecologies — it allows us to think of and read architecture as participating in a composition that ranges from the molecular to the planetary. That's the crucial awareness that you can give to students.
Composition is still fundamental to our field, but in an understanding that differs quite radically from the way it has been taught in most traditional schools of architecture. The composition of society or ecology itself is now at stake.
Of course this is an understanding of architecture that has been cultivated by Andrés in his work and teaching for many years, including the course Transscalarities which he developedand sections of which I also taught for several years. Politics also play a major role in such an awareness and understanding of architecture. To illustrate this connectedness between scales, policy, climate, architectural representation and so on, one might look at AFFIRMATION 3 on Design Policy, where the journalist Christopher Hawthorne gave this incredible example of how the kitchen renderings in real estatebrochures — showing induction cooktops — are directly linked to specific Green New Deal incentives. One of the central principles of the AFFIRMATIONS project is to illustrate such intersections but also to understandthese connections better, opening up the space for intervention by the disciplines of the built environment.
KOOZ I have an affirmation I’d like us to put forward: AFFIRMATIONS is building new trans-scalar geographies, a multifaceted and evolving body of topics to help decolonise architecture from its toxicity. It aims to shape a new role for architecture by raising consciousness of its limits and potential. Rereading underrepresented histories helps us understand the past and the present to build possible futures for a just world-making action. AFFIRMATIONS implies that architecture is political, both a tool of the established system and a will to change it.
B-JP I think that is pretty much spot on. First of all, the understanding of architecture as participating within societies is crucial, rather than understanding buildings and technology as isolated objects. And of course, the question of ecology is central to that. So is an awareness of the disciplinary limitations you seem to suggest, which is precisely why we’re opening up the field by including speakers from many different contexts and disciplines. And indeed, the notion of thinking across scales, not only material but also temporal, is key as well.
The understanding of architecture as participating within societies is crucial, rather than understanding buildings and technology as isolated objects. And of course, the question of ecology is central to that.
That these scales are fully intertwined is one of the many lessons of the series, as became clear for example in AFFIRMATION 6: Climate Regimes. In that session Rob Nixon and Samia Henni, who were in conversation with Keller Easterling and Reinhold Martin, referred to various regimes of toxicity by pointing out their temporal dimensions, examples of what Nixon calls “slow violence.” This illustrates the need for an awareness and the urgency of addressing a non-hegemonic access to time, which was also so prescient in the first AFFIRMATION with T.J. Demos and Olalekan Jeyifous. AFFIRMATIONS tries to unpack the agency that architecture has across these various scales and temporalities and takes very seriously the way it participates within constellations that are material, temporal, societal, political, and ecological.In doing so, it aims to make visible where the disciplines of the built environment might or could intervene within these constellations. I believe we are living in a time of significant and systematic changes, so what can we anticipate that might arise from this? That's why it is crucial that you point out the role of the questions; information does not necessarily give answers, but it permitsthebuilding of a critical approach that can help formulate subsequent questions as well as helping to identify spaces for intervention.
AFFIRMATIONS tries to unpack the agency that architecture has across these various scales and temporalities and takes very seriously the way it participates within constellations that are material, temporal, societal, political, and ecological.
AFFIRMATION 9. Queer/Trans Eco-Territorial-Bodiments. April 3, 2024. From left to right: Jack Halberstam, Marquis Bey, Cassils, and Andrés Jaque. Photograph by Omer Mohamed Gorashi.
KOOZ Having attended all the conversations; I noticed that common threads became more evident as we went along. I saved some memorable moments, but what surprised you and left a mark on you?
B-JP The emergence of common threads between the different sessions was fascinating, precisely because it allowed us to address similar topics from slightly altered angles, but also in many ways proved our point as to how these various topics are fully intersected. Materiality with ecology; ecology with temporality; temporality with toxicity; toxicity with colonisation; colonisation with racialisation and so on and so forth. Of course, many of these intersections are well known but others less so; the wide ranges of angles really opened up new perspectives on familiar topics. I was also incredibly impressed with the success of our open call, and with the remote participation and commitment from people all around the planet: this has been a truly wonderful thing to see.
The emergence of common threads between the different sessions was fascinating, precisely because it allowed us to address similar topics from slightly altered angles, but also proved our point as to how these various topics are fully intersected.
KOOZWhat can you tell us about the future of the AFFIRMATIONS project?
B-JP There is a future for AFFIRMATIONS; that is part of the project. But I won’t say yet in what shape; let’s just say I can think of several other media for this content.
This is what AFFIRMATIONS tries to do: to look at the many endpoints that we seem to be living in through the possibilities that might emerge from understanding of our societies and ecosystems as a constellation of many, many different participants.
3D printed stools in fiber and earth based material (wheat straw, banana fibers, clay soils from construction excavations, algae, gum, cellulose, horse manure). Developed for AFFIRMATIONS by Columbia GSAPP's Natural Materials Lab by Assistant Professor Lola Ben Alon (Director) with Mohammad Hossein Zowqi (Student Researcher). Photograph: Omer Mohamed Gorashi.
KOOZ One last question — in fact an echo of Face to Face, a BBC television show which featured Bertrand Russell in 1959: What lesson did you learn from these conversations that you believe will be worth telling the ones who didn’t attend or watch them online?
B-JP There are so many lessons, I’m not sure where to start. For sure, I would point to the many intricate ways in which to think about ecology: from TJ Demos’ notion of an ecology of connectedness, via Fuminori Nousaku’s and Mio’smaterial ecology, to Elizabeth Povinelli’s ecological entanglements or Paulo Tavares’ rights of nature. I won’t do justice by trying to explain any of these in a sentence or two, but luckily there are the YouTube recordings. Then, as mentioned, I’d talk about an understanding of how temporalities, access to temporalities, and temporal regimes all have material repercussions and vice-versa. I guess it’s another way of untangling ecosystems and taking into account marginalised voices, such as those clearly identifiable in the work of Samia Henni, DAAR, or Denise Ferreira da Silva. AFFIRMATION 9 affirmed how transness operates as a material, ecological, and technological paradigm shift together with Marquis Bey, Cassils, and Jack Halberstam. All of this to say, the lesson that can be learned without watching or listening to the conversations – which is your question – is that wemust look at multiple pasts and possible futures in correlation. This is what AFFIRMATIONS tries to do: to look at the many endpoints that we seem to be living in through the possibilities that might emerge from understanding of our societies and ecosystems as a constellation of many, many different participants.
Bio
Bart-Jan Polman is the Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and the Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP in New York. Bart-Jan has been actively involved in architectural research and education through his doctoral work at Princeton, and has taught at Columbia GSAPP, Delft University, Princeton University, Barnard College, and Pratt Institute. His research explores the intersection of welfare states with neoliberalism in the context of global inequalities. He is an experienced curator who has been a consulting curatorial research specialist for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and has developed exhibitions for the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, and Princeton University.
Valerio Franzone is Managing Editor at KoozArch. He is a Ph.D. Architect (Università IUAV di Venezia), and his work focuses on the relationships between architecture, humanity, and nature, investigating architecture’s role, limits, and potential to explore new typologies and strategies. A founding partner of 2A+P and 2A+P Architettura, he later established Valerio Franzone Architect and OCHAP | Office for Cohabitation Processes. His projects have been awarded in international competitions and shown in several exhibitions, such as the 7th, 11th, and 14th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. His projects and texts appear in magazines such as Domus, A10, Abitare, Volume, and AD Architectural Design.
Notes
1 Liquid La Habana: Ice Cream, Rum, Waves, Sweat and Spouts, curated by Beatriz Colomina, Ivan L. Munuera, and Bart-Jan Polman. Princeton University School of Architecture, April 9–May 11, 2018
2 Andrés Jaque, Founder Principal of the architecture practice Office for Political Innovation (OFFPOLINN)
3 Programme:
- AFFIRMATION 1. Anchored Futurisms: T.J. Demos (UC Santa Cruz) and Olalekan Jeyifous. In-person Response by Felicity Scott. September 11, 2023
- AFFIRMATION 2. Material Ecologies: Mireia Luzárraga (TAKK), Fuminori Nousaku (Fuminori Nousaku Architects), and Mio Tsuneyama (studio mnm). In-person Responses by Albena Yaneva and Jorge Otero-Pailos. September 18, 2023
- AFFIRMATION 3. Design Policy: Vicki Been (NYU), Christopher Hawthorne (Yale). In-person Responses by Adam Lubinsky and Weiping Wu. October 2, 2023
- AFFIRMATION 4. Indigenous Worldings: Silvia Rivera Cusincanqui and Paulo Tavares. In-person Response by Emanuel Admassu. October 9, 2023. Unfortunately, due to a last minute cancellation, Silvia was unable to participate in the session.
- AFFIRMATION 5. Decolonizations: Decolonizing Art Architecture Research (Alessandro Petti; Sandi Hilal) and Denise Ferreira da Silva (University of British Columbia). In-person Responses by Ateya Khorakiwala and Hiba Bou Akar. November 20, 2023
- AFFIRMATION 6. Climate Regimes: Samia Henni (Cornell) and Rob Nixon (Princeton). In-person Responses by Keller Easterling and Reinhold Martin. January 22, 2024
- AFFIRMATION 7. Societal Accountabilities: Eyal Weizman (Forensic Architecture) and David Wengrow (University College London). In-person Responses by Zoë Crossland and Laura Kurgan. February 12, 2024
- AFFIRMATION 8. Ecological Entanglements: Elizabeth Povinelli. Followed by a conversation between Elizabeth Povinelli and Filipa Ramos. March 18, 2024
- AFFIRMATION 9. Queer/Trans Eco-Territorial-Bodiments: Marquis Bey, Cassils, and Jack Halberstam. In-person Response by Andrés Jaque. April 3, 2024
