Stephen Cairns BA (Otago University)
BArch (University of Auckland)
PhD (University of Melbourne)
Senior Lecturer in Architectural Design and Theory
Head of Architecture
Room: 2.53
Phone: (0)131 650 2313
E-mail: s.cairns@ed.ac.uk
Globalization is the inescapable condition for architecture today. Where once information, ideas, capital, technology and people were localizable in particular places or predictable and defined circuits, they now appear mobile and fluid. This mobility has deterritorialized the settled and stable conditions that architects once took for granted and traded upon.
The phenomenon of globalization gives rise to a complex and ambiguous topography for architectural design practice: localities are shot through with the effects of global uniformity, yet new and hybrid forms of place are produced within global flows; stable identities threaten to collapse into global equivalence, yet repetitious conditions throw up alternative forms of difference.
These conditions demand a reconsideration of what it is to be an architect. They call, in turn, for the reconfiguration, retooling, and realignment of the philosophies, techniques
Publications Current Research Academics
Main Navigation
Back
|