Sunday, November 17, 2019

A Glossary of Overused Terms in (architectural) Academia

Critical
We all want to be critical - and the word is often used as critique, more as a lament. to remain dissatisfied fuels the need to be critical. samira offered a strong explanation in the death of architecture exhibition though, of how critical can be more of a self reflective practice and remind oneself of one's position within the larger dynamics of things.

Relevant
Now, isn't this an extremely subjective term? on one hand, many people debate about how there must be space for all kinds of thought and on the other, it is curtailed by the idea of relevance. How does being relevant hold itself within the liberal space? And what may be relevant to one may be irrelevant to another. Do we assume a notional community in coming up to the framing of the relevant, and how much can we trust this notional constitution in the head?

Emerging
15 years ago, there were conferences that used the term "emerging", and today, the term is still slapped onto many symposium titles. It has become a tautological term for the contemporary. It claims the a faux-desire for being contemporary, and rhetorically wants to define the 'relevant' for today...

Innovative
If not relevant, then innovative! As if, the only way to validate your existence and worth is to produce something new. Are people who follow the past necessarily traditional? Could it be that the past be internalized in a way that offers pleasure to the present existence? Who after all, decides the relevance of innovative, and should it be really left to find its own course of destiny?


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now does this post sound very cynical?

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