CALL FOR SHOUTS
CONTRIBUTE TO FAS #5 AGAINST SILENCE!
until 30.09.2015 by mail- faszine@gmail.com or share the call!
FAS is calling for texts, rants, collages, plans, strategies and tactics –any printable form- against the silence of architects: Speak up, Question the business-as-usual status quo, Scream No, and f*ck OMA’s venal ¥€$, Engage in politics, Articulate a strategy, Insult us, Insult yourself, Reflect, Copy Paste, whatever works.
"ER WIRD ALLES TUN WAS SIE WÜNSCHEN UND AUCH WIE SIE ES WÜNSCHEN". Fedor Dostoievski, Brüder Karamasov, p. 322
Roughly translated by “He will do everything you want and how you want it,” this quote sums up well the current situation for architects in Europe. Either unemployed and struggling in a shrinking building market, or a slave to the investors in a booming one, the empowering of architects is yet to happen.
While in Switzerland, now more then ever the Bank of the World, architects could take action, our deafening silence simply illustrates our submissiveness to a system that will end up eradicating us. We could unite, revolt, create our clients, pool capital, dictate our conditions, blackmail authorities, etc. because real-estate has gone wild, because money is cheap, because the Swiss construction boom won't last forever, because design has value, because none else than architects can actually design decent houses that can be sold more than their value, Swiss architects are in a position of power that they themselves ignore. Our ridiculous union the SIA is a patronal association that instead of defending the profession do nothing but self-congratulate and, in a suicidal drive, create more norms to reduce the architects’ practice. Speechless, gutless, isolated, betrayed, misunderstood, paranoid, inaccessible, corrupt, pretentious, architects remain in their ivory tower. But also inventive, resourceful, hardworking, imaginative, visionary, inspired, passionate, obsessive, architects could give so much more. Schools keep on teaching an architecture devoid of any context, an absurd love of details, while what should be thought is the art of combat, the art of persuasion, the desire to speak and engage in society, the understanding of complex markets and systems, the weapons to fight investors with their own arguments, the will and the courage to change, and the love for an architecture that stands for itself.
Yet the silence is deafening. In an ever-lasting process of self-introspection and reassessment of our profession, FAS is committed to keep the dialogue open, with or without architects, with or without you, for a betterment of our profession and to save it if it's not too late. Our enduring motto is now and forever Jean Nouvel’s: “Architect’s responsibilities begin with their silence and their disengagement.” Thus FAS is putting out an issue AGAINST THE SILENCE OF ACHITECTS, gathering the voices of the ones willing to speak.
FAS is calling for texts, rants, collages, plans, strategies and tactics –any printable form- against the silence of architects: Speak up, Question the business-as-usual status quo, Scream No, and f*ck OMA’s venal ¥€$, Engage in politics, Articulate a strategy, Insult us, Insult yourself, Reflect, Copy Paste, whatever works.
We will be waiting for a short abstract/excerpt or the contribution until
September 30, 2015 in our mail box faszine@gmail.com- and share the call.
Remember that “We Will All Be Judged by the Courage of Our Hearts.”
