The workshop explores the role of buildings as stabilisation of society in theoretical and historical perspective. Many disciplines engaged with buildings implicitly or explicitly understand buildings as a kind of technology that (should) stabilize, form, direct or influence interactions and thus society. Whether the impact of buildings is attributed to the hands or thoughts of designers to enable or hinder people do something or whether these are the concepts of architectural or social theory: Buildings are not only aesthetic objects from different stylistic and regional environments but also objects that link to their users. The workshop attempts to theorize these links and the different traditions that brought fourth those links.

Theories of buildings can be found in a number of fields, some implicit, some more explicit and raising a number of questions that have yet to be resolved:

a) Theories of buildings as technologies can be found in social theory, as technologies to discipline, to hinder interactions, as for example in Michel Foucault’s studies of the prison and the hospital or in Bruno Latour’s studies of door openers.
b) They can be found in architectural sociology or psychology and in the tradition of „Environmental Design Research“ of the 1970ies, where the idea of architecture as technology was employed to create better architecture by studying how inhabitants use buildings and then change buildings accordingly. Terms such as „hard architecture“ referred to different grades of stabilization of different kinds of buildings.
c) In architectural anthropology buildings were understood not only as symbolizing key structures of society but also as structuring interactions. One notable outcome of these studies was that the buildings of pre-modern and primitive peoples more effective in stabilizing their interactions than modern buildings, despite the latter’s explicit attempts to provide such stabilization.
d) The idea of buildings as shaping interactions has been prominent in modern architectural theory, mostly as a normative agenda of architects to build houses for specific functions or uses.
e) A fifth version of such a social theory can be found in architectural history and theory in the basic classification of buildings as building types, understood as generic forms that generated specific use patterns.
f) In legal thought, the idea of zones and zoning links buildings with uses and identifies use patterns with building forms.
g) In theories of monument protection the worth of a building is often measured as the integrity of the building with regard to its usage. The underlying idea is that a building should be kept together with the use because without this link the building could not be understood.
h) The same idea can be found in different disciplines as themes that reflect their architectural foundations. For example educationalists are interested in the form of class rooms, theology has an interest in the form of churches and business management sought to optimise the office and factory. In all these cases the aim was to implement foundational values of the disciplines as technologies into buildings to improve interactions in those fields.

The workshop invites papers that try to relate the different elements to each other. Participants may use the following themes as a basis for their proposals:

a) Relate different theoretical positions: How do different theoretical and disciplinary traditions relate buildings, technologies and interactions? How do they borrow terminologies and theoretical elements from each other and to what effect? How do terms such as “type”, “function”, “use” or “zone” link buildings and interactions in different disciplines? These questions may be the objects of contributions in the history of these disciplines but also contributions that seek to explore new avenues in theorizing the relationship between buildings and interactions.

b) Specifically look at temporal orders of the link between buildings and interactions:
To claim a relationship between buildings and interactions leads to the question of temporal order. Do new building forms create new kinds of interactions or do new kinds of interactions lead to new building forms and types? What happens in cases of incongruence of buildings and interactions such as in the case of conversion of buildings? And how can this be adequately theorised?

c) Historically compare links between buildings and interactions:
Since many of the above quoted theories often observe different intensities of buildings and interactions in different environments, contributions may explore the empirical basis of such observations and their theoretical relevance. How is it possible to measure different levels of technicity of buildings? How do different theoretical traditions, be it implicitly or explicitly, measure it? Why do theories in different times make different claims about the powers of buildings?

d) Compare different building types
Since many theoretical traditions have explored specific building types, the question arises whether those theories apply to all buildings or only to specific building types. Even without an explicit theory, it seems that many approaches assume that different building types have different powers, that churches for example structure interactions differently than prisons or offices. Contributors may thus explore why theoretical traditions focus on specific types and what the theoretical implications of such focuses are (For example Foucault’s focus on disciplinary buildings). Furthermore contributions may try to develop theories that explain different links between buildings and interactions of different building types.

e) Cross cultural studies
The anthropological tradition implies that in different societies buildings perform society in different ways. Contributions might thus explore such differences and attempt theoretical explanations.

A limited budget to help with travel expenses is available and accommodation is covered by the organisers.
10-15 papers will be accepted and distributed before the workshop. The workshop will be reserved for intensive discussion of papers.
Please send an abstract of 300-500 words until December 15th 2008 to gug@ethno.uzh.ch