The notion of transparency has achieved a continued, if varied, currency in architectural discourse throughout the twentieth-century. Along with a multitude of material attributes, transparency advocated a shifting, yet ever-present, ideological sensibility. Towards the latter part of the twentieth century, however, the general notion of transparency as an ideological mechanism became to decline. Today, while a literal sense of transparency remains, its ideology (purportedly) does not. This symposium aims to resurface questions of ideology in (contemporary) architectural discourse by creating dialogues around the following questions:
- As the notion of transparency appears to be superseded by the immateriality of the digital, how can contemporary architectural research address transparency’s role as a technological innovation, as a mechanism for design, and, above all, as an ideological device?
- Do new design technologies and media produce more transparent systems of communication?
- Despite the apparent displacement of ideology in current architectural arguments and projects, what are the subjacent ideologies that remain and how might we be able to scrutinise them?

Date:
Friday 8th May 2009

Organising Committee:
Doreen Bernath, Nerma Cridge, Eva Eylers, Kris Mun, Emanuel de Sousa, Tania Lopez Winkler, Kirk Wooller

AA PhD Dialogues is an annual international event organised by students of the PhD Programme at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. AA PhD Dialogues is the follow-up event to the 2008 AA PhD Symposium, The Critique of the New: Questioning the Legitimization of Newness Through Technology, with Mark Wigley (Columbia GSAPP) as keynote speaker. Each year a theme is selected based upon a particular set of terms that address current questions within contemporary architectural discourse. This theme operates as an umbrella under which individual PhD research can be collectively discussed in an international forum.
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