Fuck context, czyli splatając architekturę ze społeczeństwem

Abstract

Fuck context, or interweaving architecture with society

The majority of architectural studies tends to focus on relationships between architecture and its materiality on the one hand and the society or culture, on the other. In this perspective, buildings and projects, architects and their work can be understood only by placing them within the social context, structures, frames and conditions. Architecture is here and mirrors societal changes and processes, while the explanations are there. Buildings are stable, there is no action, all moves and all flows are outside, behind or hidden and the only thing researchers and designers should do is to unveil them.The ambition of this article is different. Starting from Rem Koolhaas’s well-known phrase — “fuck context” — I argue that the main purpose of studying architecture should not be explaining or interpreting buildings but trying to understand them and to follow, account and examine all human and non-human actors involved in the dynamic architectural network. This is why I propose to apply the Action-Network Theory as a new method of studying and analyzing architecture in the humanities and social sciences but also in architecture theory. If we pay attention to details, to actors and their actions as much as it is possible, to their associations and connections, to what buildings do rather than what they mean, a new and richer version of architecture will appear. And there will be no place, no necessity for context.