Ten Days for Oppositional Architecture

Ten Days for Oppositional Architecture was a 10-day public event consisting of lectures, discussions, presentations, film screenings, and a range of participatory events, bringing together architects, activists, geographers, planners, economists, and the general public. The project was conceptualized by the biannual journal on architecture and politics An Architectur and was commissioned and hosted by Performa and Storefront for Art and Architecture. In the midst of an economic crisis, the organizers suggested shifting the boundaries of architectural practice so as to incorporate resistant strategies. Their intention was to build political momentum toward bridging the capitalist mode of spatial production: “Due to the current crisis, however, which goes far beyond a mere crisis of the real estate and financial market, these neoliberal politics and attendant forms of production of space have been subject to a loss of legitimation. For this reason, not only do the dominance and promises of the privatization model, the free market and private property have to be questioned, but also the conventions of the space-producing professions that follow and materialize these policies.” In this context, the event Ten Days for Oppositional Architecture took up the task of exploring possibilities and conditions of a socially committed architectural practice, for which the narrow boundaries of the architectural field were left behind. By involving a broad range of critical voices from a multi-disciplinary perspective, its aim was not only to discuss and develop concepts and strategies that oppose the capitalist mode of production of space, but also to actually change them. Viewed as such, the project looked at how strategies and alternative practices can be turned into real social and political forces towards post-capitalist spaces. Participating artists included: An Architektur, Brett Bloom, Janelle Cornwell, Teddy Cruz, James deFilippis, Veronica Dorsey, Julie Graham, David Harvey, Ashley Hufnagel, David Kotz, Alexander Levi, Peter Linebaugh, Lize Mogel, The Public School (for Architecture), Max Rameau, Rob Robinson, Amanda Schachter, Neil Smith, and Esther Wang.