LECTURE AND DISCUSSION WITH STAVROS STAVRIDES AND FLORIAN KÖHL
How can we live with one another? And how can we gear production processes to the needs of the common good? Historically, the architects of the Bauhaus philosophy focused on this question at the interface of design, architecture, art, and craftsmanship. In their search for a commons, they saw functionality, standardization, and rationalization as possible solutions.
One hundred years on, however, these approaches appear to be at the root of (new) problems for society as a whole: rather than promoting the commons, technological innovations, automation, and rationalization seem to favour the optimization of capitalist production conditions, while also fostering the development of social crises.
Seen in this context, the commons movement provides an alternative answer to the questions of how to live together. Based on a variety of products and resources created and used collectively, advocates of the commons see commoning as a counterproposition to our economic model.
What can the experience of the Bauhaus, the social dimensions of design, and the commons movement learn from one other with respect to the questions of communal living and creativity?
The event addresses these questions and begins with a presentation of the results and empirical outcomes of the practical
LUDD workshops. Here, the Bauhaus’s radical ambition to create functional and ergonomic goods of public value (here based on the example of a chair inspired by the Bauhaus!) are re-imagined in line with the idea of commoning.
This will be followed by keynote lectures by Florian Köhl and Stavros Stavrides, whose talks will be titled “Come On Architecture, Make Space More Common” and “Bauhaus and the Architecture of the Commons” respectively. This will be followed by a panel discussion on the Bauhaus approach to the commons and a group reception.
Biographies:
@ fatkoehl Architekten
Architect
Florian Köhl established the firm fatkoehl architekten in 2002, after several years of research and teaching, creating one of the first building collectives (Baugemeinschaften) in Berlin. Today, the office focuses on the development of cooperative architectural models for affordable living and working as well as for the shared use of public spaces in the city. Together with the recently founded Quest platform and activist groups in Berlin, fatkoehl architekten is developing new models as alternatives to the existing urban planning processes. His publications include
Selfmade City and the thirteenth edition of
ARCH+ features “Geteilte Autorschaft” (in German).
@ Stavros Stavrides
Dr Stavros Stavrides, is an architect, activist, and professor at the National Technical University of Athens. In his recent works
Common Space: The City as Commons and
Common Spaces of Urban Emancipation, he focuses on forms of emancipatory spatial practice and urban commoning.
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