MULTISTORY* Guest Lecture David Roberts Thurs 9th Nov | Events

We are pleased to announce a MULTISTORY* Guest lecture by

David Roberts // Research Ethics Fellow, UCL

Thursday 9th November 2017 // Lecture 6pm // The Architecture Foyer

David Roberts is a Teaching Fellow in Design and History & Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture and Visiting Professor at Aarhus School of Architecture. David is also a Research Ethics Fellow at the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment. Alongside his teaching and research, he is also part of collaborative art practice Fugitive Images and of architecture collective Involve.

He uses poetry and performance to explore the relation between people and place. He has exhibited, lectured and published work related to public housing, architecture, critical methodologies and site-specific practice.

The talk David will give is entitled: Make Public: Performing public housing in Ernö Goldfinger’s Balfron Tower

The abstract for the talk:

In this talk I explore the past and future of Balfron Tower, a 1965-7 Brutalist high-rise in east London designed by Ernö Goldfinger and facing refurbishment and privatisation today. I draw on performance in three ways; as a mode of analysis to interrogate cultural, academic and archival material; a method of engagement to build collective knowledge with residents through performative workshops; and a means of activism to draw on this material and evidence to campaign for Balfron Tower to remain a beacon for social housing.

The rallying cry, to ‘make public’, expresses three aims; materially – to protect public housing provision at a time when austerity measures are dismantling it in ideal and form; procedurally – to make visible problematic processes of urban change that are increasingly hidden from public view; and methodologically – to make public the act of research through intimate and sustained collaboration with the estate’s residents on site. Through this collaborative work with Balfron’s residents and tireless local campaign groups, I advance an argument that the practice and guidance of heritage of post-war housing estates must not only pay tribute to the egalitarian principles at their foundations, it must enact them.

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MULTISTORY* is a student and alumni led guest lecture programme series at Canterbury School of Architecture, University for the Creative Arts, seeking to invite architects, designers, writers, curators, photographers and artists to speak about their work.