Lecture| MANIFESTOS FOR DESIGNING ENVIRONMENTS WITHOUT PRECEDENTS

Speaker:

Nasrin Seraji

Abstract

In his book theories and manifestos Charles Jenks asks a very important question.

“Why do politicians and architects write manifestos?” The answer is what Marx says about why he wrote The Communist manifesto. He didn’t write it to produce literature nor to interpret the world but to change it. This is perhaps why now more than ever we as architects need to change the world, we urgently need a working manifesto for an environment that is moving fast forward toward more and more natural manmade catastrophes.

We need to end building and end extraction, as well as rethink resources. The lecture introduces the origins of some important 20th century manifestos that have been the origine of movements that have constructed our modern attitudes and goes on to propose a series of questions as to why the future is now.