Theory of Architecture

Gastprof. PhD. BArch. Tulay Atak

Articulating the role of architecture and design is urgent today as we face social, technological and environmental questions of inequity, rapid transformation of digital culture and climate change. Design professions like architecture are uniquely positioned to understand and address these questions, both by suggesting conceptual frameworks and by providing innovative design propositions.
Architectural theory articulates the links between architecture’s disciplinary knowledge and contemporary questions. In educating the next generation of architects, we have to think about the “worldliness” of our field, or how architectural ideas transform and adapt to different contexts and events while acknowledging our disciplinary tools and techniques. Theory plays a foundational role in the design curriculum by tracing the transformation of architectural ideas, by articulating the links between specific examples and their social and cultural contexts, by deepening the theoretical underpinnings of formal operations and by mapping how the field of architecture can expand in order to experiment and address contemporary questions. Theory is a discipline that deliberately questions how we think in order to change not only how, but what we design.
The department ‘Theory of Architecture’ has the primary mission to contribute to the design philosophy and the design thinking of students in architecture. At the same time, it is a platform of ideas and discussions where students from the three different studios and other departments come together, a place where students can see the relations between distinct design questions and where they can experiment with instrumentalizing architectural theories to develop arguments and propositions.

Contact: tulay.atak@uni-ak.ac.at