THE CRITICAL LEGACIES OF MANFREDO TAFURI
A Conference co-sponsored by Columbia University GSAPP and the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Cooper Union

April 20-21 2006

Organized by Daniel Sherer, Columbia University GSAPP / Cooper Union , translator of Manfredo Tafuri, Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects (Yale University Press in association with the Harvard GSD), 2006.

Manfredo Tafuri occupies a pivotal position within contemporary architectural discourse both as a protagonist of the critical debates of the 1970s and as a historian who elucidated every period of architectural history from 1400 to the present. In addition to marking the publication of the English translation of his last work, Manfredo Tafuri, Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes, Cities, Architects (Yale University Press in association with the Harvard GSD), 2006, the conference will take this text as a point of departure for a new assessment of his critical legacies. Addressing Tafuri's trajectory both on the historiographical and the theoretical levels and in terms of the complexities of his reception in Europe and the United States, this two-day forum will attempt to move beyond reductive characterizations that have tended impede the understanding of his work--the end of architecture, nihilism, political and economic determinism, and a nostalgic disconnection from the present--in order to renew the dialogue Tafuri opened between architecture and history. In so doing, it will try to achieve a balanced overview of Tafuri's historical project subsuming his Renaissance and modern concerns under a unified picture that does not underplay the internal tensions of his work, but places them at the center of the inquiry.

SCHEDULE

Thursday, April 20, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GSAPP (Wood Auditorium, 9:30 AM--6:00 PM)

Opening remarks
Mark Wigley and Daniel Sherer

Session 1: Crises of the Modern
Diana Agrest, Cooper Union
Marco de Michelis, IUAV
Andrew Leach, University of Queensland
Discussion moderated by Reinhold Martin, Columbia University GSAPP

Break

Session 2: Architecture as A Critical Project
Peter Eisenman, Cooper Union
Kenneth Frampton, Columbia University GSAPP
Scott Cohen, Harvard GSD
Discussion moderated by Anthony Vidler, Cooper Union

Session 3: Reception, Translation, Dissemination
Joan Ockman, Columbia University GSAPP/Buell Center
Mark Rakatansky, Columbia University GSAPP
Carla Keyvanian, University of Connecticut at Storrs
Anthony Vidler, Cooper Union
Discussion moderated by Guido Zuliani, Cooper Union

Friday, April 21, COOPER UNION, Great Hall, 12 Noon-6:30 PM

Opening Remarks
Anthony Vidler

Session 1: Renaissance Into Modern: Ruptures and Continuities
James Ackerman, Harvard Department of History of Art and Architecture (Emeritus)
Deborah Howard, Cambridge University School of Architecture
Discussion moderated by Daniel Sherer, Columbia University GSAPP/Cooper Union

Session 2: Tafuri and the City
Jean-Louis Cohen, New York University IFA
Bernardo Secchi, IUAV
Diane Lewis, Cooper Union
Discussion moderated by Alessandra Ponte, Pratt Institute

Short Break

Session 3: Modernization, Technology, and Utopia
Antoine Picon, Harvard GSD
Marco Biraghi, Politecnico di Milano
Reinhold Martin, Columbia University GSAPP
Beatriz Colomina, Princeton University School of Architecture
Discussion moderated by Jean-Louis Cohen, IFA


Saturday, 12 Noon-4 PM, 4th Floor Avery: PhD Colloquium on Tafuri, co-chaired by Daniel Barber and Alessandra Ponte, with PhD candidates at Columbia GSAPP and IUAV (University of Venice)