Call for Papers /// Architect as Lore, 10–12 June 2027, Ankara, Turkey

Architect as Lore: Myths, Narratives, and Others That Define Architectural Identity

June 10-12, 2027 – Ankara, Turkey  

CO-CONVENORS:

Berrin Terim, Clemson University

Ezgi Isbilen, Virginia Tech, WAAC

For submissions and inquiries: frascarisymposium8@gmail.com

The 8th edition of the Frascari Symposium will shift the focus from architecture to the architect. Far from being fixed, the architect’s professional persona is continually shaped by intersecting histories, pedagogies, and ideological structures. Architecture with a capital “A” often foregrounds the architect as a singular figure in theory, while the role depends on many contingencies in practice. Whether defined as immaterial labor that is undervalued or as the material craft of producing representations of buildings, the communicative role of architectural labor has been subject to ambiguous and shifting interpretations. Despite its clear association with design since the Renaissance, it has led to ambiguous outcomes concerning authorship, authority, and merit in practice. 

As Marco Frascari has argued, at the core of the profession lies the architect’s imagination: “Metis/Sollertia is [described as] the fundamental virtue with which architects infuse their factures… and mediate architecture critically by constructing plots and weaving plans.” (Frascari, 2009 & 2011).  Through mediation, the act of design becomes a cosmopoiesis.Therefore, the subjective dimension of architecture is the result of multiple subjectivities, of the architects, as well as the collective memory of clients, collaborators, and the public. The architect’s role as a facilitator among diverse actors in the design and building process needs to be reasserted, even as we critique the myth of the singular genius. It is this in-between position of an individual who works with, for, and through the collective, that we seek to explore. 

Given the urgent challenges confronting the profession today, such as the rise of AI and the increasing fragmentation of architectural practice, it is both timely and pedagogically vital to reexamine the lore that has long shaped the architect’s disciplinary identity. These challenges demand more than a critique of current conditions; they call for a deeper investigation into the narratives, institutions, and embodied practices that have historically defined and continue to inform who the architect is and what the architect does. By tracing the intertwined forces of education, authorship, embodiment, and ethics, we aim to open a space for rethinking the figure of the architect beyond conventional frameworks.

To that end, the symposium invites participants to explore this terrain through one or more of the following four currents:

1. Locus: The Situated Body of the ArchitectThis current invites reflections on the embodied and spatial dimensions of practice, where and how the architect is positioned physically, psychologically, and sensorily in relation to the act of design.

2. Origo: Origins and FormationThis current considers the educational, personal, and cultural origins that shape architectural identity, from early influences to institutional training.

3. Role: Authorship and AgencyThis current examines the myths, power structures, and critiques surrounding the architect’s role in the design process and the built environment.

4. Ethos: Cultural Frameworks and Ethical DimensionsThis current explores the larger ethical, ideological, and societal narratives that define and challenge the architect’s place in the world.

Currents

Locus: The Situated Body of the Architect      

Design in architecture is often presented as the product of a rational, deliberate process, a matter of mind and intention. Yet many architects themselves struggle to describe the moment or process in which design actually occurs. As Mark Cousins noted, something about design evades conscious authorship; it happens in a space that is difficult to locate or claim (Cousins, 2015). This paradox unsettles the centrality of the architect’s mind and suggests that design may arise elsewhere, perhaps in the body, the space around it, or in the habitual gestures that precede thought.

This current invites contributions that examine the locus of the architect not as a purely mental or symbolic figure, but as a situated, embodied presence. What if we approached the architect not through ideology, authorship, or representation, but as a body moving through environments, sensing, drawing, hesitating, reacting… Like the tree that became part of the reconstruction of the Convent of San Sebastiano, after a hot ember from Scarpa’s assistant’s cigarette fell onto the traced plans (Dayer, 2015), what other instances escape traditional narratives of design? Or consider the specificities of Paimio Sanatorium, which invites a close reading of Aalto’s own experience with tuberculosis (Colomina, 2019); or, Adolf Loos’s exceptional attunement to the aural dimension of materials due to his gradual loss of hearing. (Weizman, 2014) What other bodies serve as the locus of design? We are particularly interested in papers that foreground these elusive yet crucial sites: the physical, psychological, or spatial conditions that surround and permeate the act of architectural creation.

We welcome historical, theoretical, and practice-based inquiries that engage with embodiment, perception, temporality, habit, or gesture in relation to architectural design. How do specific sites, such as domestic interiors, institutions, landscapes, anchor or interrupt the architectural imagination? This session seeks to open a space for rethinking where and how architecture begins at the intersection of body and mind, gesture and space.

Origo: Origins and Formation                     

Architectural education has been described as feeling “like a second adolescence, constantly looking for solid ground,” a journey which ends by landing as a different person, one who is stronger and wiser. (Wingärd et al., 2011) In this sense, architectural education can be considered a process of self-transformation. Moreover, as Dana Cuff and James Thompson lay out in the most comprehensive ethnographies on the profession, becoming an architect transcends education. (Cuff, 1991; Thompson, 2019) It involves a lengthy process in one’s emotional state and social standing. One moves from aspiring, to believing, to being believed in by those who matter, until one fully inhabits the role. Beyond the seemingly established authority, we wonder the other parameters that lead to such formation of an architect.

The many routes by which architects come into being reveal how formation extends beyond formal education or professional accreditation. Nail Çakırhan, for example, began as a journalist and poet before winning the Aga Khan Award for architecture, while Le Corbusier, the quintessential modernist, identified himself as an author rather than an architect. Philip Johnson entered the field as a patron and curator before pursuing a degree, and even then continued to describe himself primarily as a historian. Carlo Scarpa, though deeply influential as a designer, never completed the professional licensing process and was known simply as “Professor.” The list of such figures is long and often repeated anecdotally, yet the intricacies of these “other” processes of becoming, from how they unfold, to what enables them, and how they shape practice, remain underexplored. These examples show that architectural identity often emerges from diverse cultural, intellectual, and social trajectories, complicating any singular definition of what it means to “become” an architect.

In this section, we are seeking inquiries, and reflections on stories of becoming an architect, through both conventional and less conventional paths, with particular interest in how these narratives illuminate the specificities of architectural production shaped by each journey.

Role: Authorship and Agency                       

Architectural production is inherently collaborative, involving complex decision-making processes that extend far beyond the individual design aspirations of thearchitect. Since the emergence of the architect as a distinct title duringthe Renaissance, these complexities have often been obscured by the notion of the architect’s design authorship, through which historical narratives have been shaped as the legacy of a privileged few. As we seek to deconstruct the myth of the solitary genius architect and uncover the intricate dynamics of architectural production, where and how should we situate the authorship of architectural design and its reception by the public?

This current seeks to explore the interchangeable roles played by clients, architects, community stakeholders, and others during the design, construction, and reception of architectural works. We are particularly interested in narratives of building designs told from the perspective of others than the credited architect. In what ways has the social standing of a client directly influenced the design outcome, like the legacy of the modern houses commissioned by female clients (Friedman, 1998). In what instances have clients’ interventions significantly transformed a project, leading architects to distance themselves from the final product? Conversely, how have architects created frameworks that intentionally empower communities to take ownership of the design process, celebrating a more collective approach to authorship? How have gendered dynamics influenced the attribution of authorship in architectural practice? Which projects have been misattributed or anonymized, and how have these accounts been corrected?

By foregrounding the contributions of often-overlooked actors in the design and construction of buildings, this current invites us to rethink and reposition the architect’s role within the broader narrative of architectural authorship. We welcome revisionist histories that correct or expand traditional notions of authorship from the early modern period onward, with a particular focus on buildings famously credited to architects while other contributors’ voices were marginalized.

Ethos: Cultural Frameworks and Ethical Dimensions

Architects design buildings that perform beyond tectonic imagination. They primarily tell stories about how the world, or a part of it, comes into being through the act of making. Through these stories one can tell dynamics of the larger cultural production of which architecture is a part and symptom. The main role of the art of building is to make our life pleasant and happy, an invaluable vita beata (Frascari, 2012). The ethos of a building reflects the values of the society or time in which it was created.

Architects design buildings that perform beyond tectonic imagination. They primarily tell stories about how the world, or a part of it, comes into being through the act of making. Through these stories one can tell dynamics of the larger cultural production of which architecture is a part and symptom. The main role of the art of building is to make our life pleasant and happy, an invaluable vita beata (Frascari, 2012). The ethos of a building reflects the values of the society or time in which it was created.

Many architects aim to preserve the environment, empower people, and provide spatial agency through design. Lacaton and Vassal’s restorative architecture foregrounds renovation over demolition and gives buildings second lives. Alejandro Aravena’s incremental housing allows residents with limited resources to build over time. Francis Kéré’s participatory design empowers local communities by incorporating indigenous materials and local craftsmanship. Teddy Cruz and Fionna Forman’s Cross-Border Community Projects on the US-Mexico border, challenge borders and inequality, render architecture as political activism, and make invisible power dynamics explicit. Architecture embodies cultural ideals and criticism.

Whether empowering individuals and disadvantaged groups or narrating better futures for collectives and communities, architects’ fundamental assumptions, aspirations, and ethos ring consonant with those of the wider society, which surrounds them.  In a time of deep global uncertainty and transformation, architecture’s ethos matters more than ever. In this current, we invite papers that critically examine how architects translate cultural frameworks and ethics, and how buildings articulate value systems, negotiate identity, and give spatial form to collective ethics.

ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Colomina, Beatriz. X-Ray Architecture. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2019.

Cuff, Dana. Architecture: The Story of Practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1991.

Cousins, Mark. “Architecture and the Rabbit.” In 2000+ The Urgencies of Architectural Theory, edited by James Graham, 145–160. New York, NY: GSAPP Books, 2015.

Dayer, Carolina. “Material Intuitions: Tracing Carlo Scarpa’s Nose.” In The Material Imagination: Reveries on Architecture and Matter, edited by Matthew Mindrup, 23–42. London: Routledge, 2016.

Deamer, Peggy. Architecture and Labor. New York, NY: Routledge, 2020.Evans, Robin. “Translations from Drawing to Building.” AA Files 12 (1986): 3–18.

Frascari, Marco. Eleven Exercises in the Art of Architectural Drawing: Slow-Food for theArchitect’s Imagination. 1st ed. London: Routledge, 2011.

Frascari, Marco. “Lines as Architectural Thinking.” Architectural Theory Review 14, no. 3 (2009): 200–212.

Frascari, Marco. “An Architectural Good-Life Can Be Built, Explained, and Taught Only Through Storytelling.” In Reading Architecture and Culture, edited by Adam Sharr, 25–36. London and New York: Routledge, 2012.

Friedman, Alice T. Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History. New York, NY: Abrams, 1998.

Thompson, James. Narratives of Architectural Education: From Student to Architect. London: Routledge, 2019.

Till, Jeremy. Architecture Depends. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2009.

Weizman, Inez. “Tuning into the Void: The Aurality of Adolf Loos’s Architecture.” Harvard Design Magazine 38 (2014): 8–16.

Wingard, L., Nilsson, K., Schuman, M., and Ljungberg, P. On Becoming an Architect. Stockholm: Swedish Association of Architects, 2011.

Submissions

We invite submissions of scholarly and creative papers and/or creative and scholarly works for each current. Individuals are allowed up to two separate submissions, one for each category. Please include the category (Call for Papers or Call for Works) and the current (Locus, Origio, Role, or Ethos) you are responding to in the subject line and follow the submission instructions for the relevant category specified below. All submissions will remain anonymous and blind peer reviewed. 

Papers and creative works will be considered for a future publication following the symposium.

The symposium is planned to be held entirely in person at the The Architects’ Association 1927 in Ankara, Turkey. 

Please email the following submission materials to frascarisymposium8@gmail.com by March 29, 2026 at 11:59 EST

CALL FOR PAPERS SUBMISSIONS:

Please include the category (Call for Papers) and the current (Locus, Origio, Role, or Ethos) you are responding to in the subject line. 

In the body of the email, please include the title of your abstract along with the author name(s), institution(s), and affiliation(s). Please send your submission with two attachments:

1. The abstract file should include the following in a .docx format.

   • Title

   • The body of your abstract should consist of no more than 400 words and two images.

   • Max 2 images

   • Min 3 descriptive keywords

   • Notes (optional, and not included in word count)

   • The current they are submitting to (Locus, Origio, Role, Ethos)

2. The information file should include the following in a .docx format.

   •  Name and 100-word biography of the author(s)

CALL FOR WORKS SUBMISSIONS:

Please include the category (Call for Works) and the current (Locus, Origio, Role, or Ethos) you are responding to in the subject line. 

In the body of the email, please include the title of your abstract along with the author name(s), institution(s), and affiliation(s). Please send your submission with two attachments:

1. The abstract file should include the following in a .docx format.

   • Title

   • The body of your abstract should consist of no more than 400 words and two images.

   • Max 5 images

   • Min 1 descriptive keyword(s)

   • Notes (optional, and not included in word count

   • The abstracts for works should identify media (including electronic), size (in inches or metric format), 2-D or 3-D, and any special installation and exhibition instructions. While we will make all reasonable efforts to accommodate special installation instructions, unusual sizes or other complex requirements, we cannot guarantee they will be possible.

2. The information file should include the following in a .docx format.

   •  Name and 100-word biography of the author(s)

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