Transgression – A New Paradigm?

Since its beginnings as a discipline, the history of architecture was assimilated to and presented as a history of space. Building up on the architectural treatises of the previous centuries, this narrative was shaped through the entire 19th century and refined in the following century, defining the discipline in straight relationship to conceiving and organizing space. Associated with the “art of architecture” – differentiated as such by mere building –, space was thus turned into a marker – cultural/ social/ and political – and a matter of exclusion. What happens outside the normative approach imposed by a spatially centered architectural thinking? Are those architectures outside this regulated and rationalized system “non-architectures” (to paraphrase Fletcher's “non-historical styles”)? What about the very act of inhabiting which implies appropriation of the architectural space, hence changed into a place? How do those deprived of space (homeless/ migrants/ refugees...) inhabit the world? The conference invites scholars to look (once again) at the act of transgression not only as a possible answer, but also as a rising paradigm of our age. Is the spatial approach – responsible, among others, of the “spatial turn” operated in the last two decades in the humanities – the ultimate way of conceiving architecture? In the past years, an increasing number of “transgressive” manifestations proved that architects, historians, theoreticians started to tackle normativity, by dismantling its regulated system. Can one consider the accumulation of current transgressions – from the “ordinary” appropriation of the inhabiting space to the postmodern theories reconsidering the conception of spatial coordinates and to the alternative storylines of the “New” or post- History – as a multi-level challenge of the project of modernity? If space theorization reflected the positioning of modernity, whose project strived to provide powerful instruments of (time and space) control, is the conception of transgression at the core of a new epistemology in the making? In 2013, Transgression was the theme of the 10th international conference of the Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA), organized by David Littlefield and Rachel Sara (UWE Bristol). While being aware of this conference and of the resulting publications, the ENSAB/ EAHN themed conference is not intended as continuation of the AHRA event. Its aim is to demonstrate that the concept of transgression represents more than just an extension for understanding the architectural field (as indicated by the title of one of the AHRA publications); it provides the insightful reading of a new paradigm. The themed conference builds up on an international research project launched in 2017 by Carmen Popescu which gathered a number of scholars from different countries. Since 2017, the project was further developed through a number of events and actions.