PhD seminars series 2011-2012
The Project: the Rise and Fall of a Political and Artistic Paradigm
Friday June 22nd from 18.00 to 20.00 – J.J.P. Oud room
Seventh Seminar with David Gissen

Maintenance Environments: Histories, Theories, and Criticisms

The following writings and projects examine the concept of maintenance and care as a historical, theoretical and critical project within architecture. While all buildings potentially support the subjects and objects within them, the following work considers how maintenance arises as a form of urban, socio-natural power within key buildings of the 1960s and 1970s. It becomes a critical aspect of a larger turn towards the subjects and objects of a post-industrial and global economic order. The writings explore these concepts in historical episodes and as an aspect of a potentially more overt project within the city.

1. History
Gissen, David (2009) “The Architectural Production of Nature: Dendur/New York.” Grey Room 34: 58-79

2. Theory
Gissen, David (2011) “Maintenance Environments” in O’Brien, William ed. Cycles (Actar, forthcoming 2012).

3. Criticism
Gissen, David and Manaugh, Geoff (2012) “History’s Apparatus: An Interview with David Gissen.” in Geoff Manaugh, ed. Landscape Futures (Actar, forthcoming 2012)

4. Works:
Museums of the City
The Mound of Vendome