In the face of the polarized positions and violent confrontations of the present moment – including climate crisis, migration, housing shortage, and escalating economic and social inequality – the call for a politically and socially engaging architecture is pressing. The built environment was a cornerstone in the social contract of the 20th-century welfare state, but today the relationship between the state and the built environment is radically different, and the role of architecture in societal change is far from obvious.
This talk takes its starting point in the book Architecture & Retrenchment, and addresses architecture’s agency in a transforming political landscape where a neoliberal agenda radically has changed the conditions for the discipline. I argue that there is a need to broaden the concept of architecture to reveal its role in societal processes, critically analyze how architecture operates today, and, not least, to support new possibilities to bring about change.
Helena Mattsson is Professor in History and Theory at KTH School of Architecture. Her research focuses on recent history and the interdependency between politics, economy, and spatial organizations. Her monograph Architecture and Retrenchment: Neoliberalization of the Swedish Model Across Aesthetics and Space, 1968-1994 (Bloomsbury Visual Arts) was published in spring 2023. She is the co-editor for publications such as Neoliberalism on the Ground (Pittsburgh University Press, 2021), Swedish Modernism: Architecture, Consumption, and the Welfare State (2010), the themed issue of Architecture and Culture, “Architecture and Capitalism: Solids and Flows” (2017). Mattsson is a member of the editorial board of Journal of Architecture.
The event will be presented and moderated by Ebba Högström, Professor at Umeå School of Architecture. The event is held in English.
The UMA Talks are a free and accessible series of events. The series is devoted to advancing architectural discourse from both an international perspective and local perspective, and strives to enable the public, students, teachers, and researchers both within architecture and from other fields to get insight to and participate in the educational activities and academic research taking place at Umeå School of Architecture. Theorist, practitioners, artists, and other relevant guests are invited to speak or to participate in roundtable conversations or similar formats. Read more about UMA Talks here.
Image: a concrete element, Bofill’s Arc, Södra stationsområdet, Stockholm. Photographer unkown. Copyright: Maud Livén.