Architectures of Order. Practices and Discourses between Design and Knowledge

Pruitt Igoe collapses. Photograph by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research – Creating Defensible Space, Public Domain.

“Architectures of Order” (AO) is an interdisciplinary research project (2020-2023) undertaken by the Goethe University Frankfurt and the Technical University of Darmstadt, with the Max-Planck-Institute for European Legal History and the Deutsches Architekturmuseum as associated partners. Comprising 26 members, the project is concerned with an investigation of architecture as a cultural practice of ordering that manifests aesthetically, materially, spatially, and discursively, as well as epistemologically.

Hence, the project is just as interested in the influence that exercises in architecture have on societal, cultural, scientific and technological practices of ordering as it is in how architectural practices of ordering are shaped by society, culture and science. It furthermore especially focuses on exploring the interaction between these two territories. Given the interdisciplinary nature of its scope, the project assembles expertise from the fields of architectural history and theory, history, sociology, cultural and media studies, and design theory, further complementing them with competences in architectural design and media practice.