Can Architecture be Critical?

Buildings are called into being by needs and desires in society, assembled from materials provided with the cultural disinterest of the market and to rules and regulations set by legislators and bureaucrats. They enclose events, rituals and processes which embrace the full breadth of human experience. Architecture is positioned in the cultural history of this built negotiation over time, an abrasion between ideal and real, as fruitful as it is frustrating. Where in this gathering is there space for practice to be critical? Is it even possible to talk in these terms? Andrew Clancy chairs a discussion about the nature of contemporary practice, building on a commissioned essay for the AR which addressed the matter of critical practice in todays pluralistic landscape. In this discussion he is joined by Cathy Hawley and Michael Badu (both of Register) along with Eleanor Beaumont, Shumi Bose and Ellis Woodman to tease out the arguments.