Writing as Critical Praxis
April 8, 2021
For the third event in the ongoing series of research methods-based discussions, CE+ has partnered with LUNCH, the School of Architecture’s student-run design journal, to explore the evolving practices of writing, editing, and publishing as vital forms of critical inquiry and powerful tools in projecting new futures for the built environment. In the spirit of CE+’s interdisciplinary approach to scholarly research and LUNCH’s role publishing a broad variety of theory, history, criticism, experimentation, design, and artwork each year, we will be discussing the role of writing as a critical praxis with artist, designer, and architectural historian Esther Choi and design critic Alexandra Lange.
With many entry points into the discourse of design and its practices, our guests will share their work, which draws inspiration from both the exceptional and the everyday, and their thoughts on how writing as a means of critique contributes to a richer understanding of complex networks of meaning within the built environment. Their presentations will be followed by a moderated discussion and Q+A session led by Lauren McQuistion, President of CE+, and Samantha Sigmon, an editor of LUNCH 16: Descent.
PANELISTS:
ESTHER CHOI
ALEXANDRA LANGE
Esther Choi is a multidisciplinary artist and architectural historian based in New York City. Her scholarly work explores how the domestication of nature by scientific and cultural workers throughout modern and postwar European history was crucial to the reproduction of inequality. Choi is also interested in the overlaps between art, pedagogy, and social practice. She is the Founding Director of Office Hours, a non-profit mentoring initiative featuring notable and emerging BIPOC design practitioners in group conversations, which has been attended by over 1500 BIPOC designers worldwide. Choi’s work has been exhibited internationally and written about in T: The New York Times Style Magazine, 032C, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and more. She is the co-editor of Architecture at the Edge of Everything Else (MIT Press, 2010) and Architecture Is All Over (Columbia U, 2017). Her essays have appeared in Artforum, Architectural Review, and Art Papers.
Alexandra Lange is a design critic. Her essays, reviews, and profiles have appeared in numerous design publications including Architect, Harvard Design Magazine, Metropolis, and T Magazine, as well as in The Atlantic, New York Magazine, the New Yorker, and the New York Times. She has been a featured writer at Design Observer, an Opinion columnist at Dezeen, and the architecture critic for Curbed. She has taught design criticism at the School of Visual Arts and New York University. Her latest book, The Design of Childhood: How the Material World Shapes Independent Kids was published by Bloomsbury USA in June 2018. She is currently at work on a new book about the history and future of the American shopping mall.
MODERATED BY:
LAUREN MCQUISTION, Ph.D Candidate; President of CE+
SAMANTHA SIGMON, MArH Candidate; Editor of LUNCH 16: Descent
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