The professional role of the architect has changed over time and has been subject to discussions ever since its distinction from the medieval master builder. Since the making of the architect, the discipline has been reinventing itself over and over again in dynamic relationships to shifting economies, cultural codes, individual and collective aspirations. We have seen star architects rising, witnessed myth-making around genius architects, reflected on non-heroic service architecture, the tradition of handicraft in architecture, criticized the architect architects’ taste regime, sneered at artist architects, despised commercial architects, applauded feminist architects, and recently also learned about cooking-, gardening-, performing-, and entertaining architects.

We suggest that transforming roles also changes practices and perceptions of architecture. It has an impact on the discipline itself. Disciplinary definitions are branching out, and inventing new and old architectural roles is part of this game. What kind of architect are you? Where do you see an architect’s responsibilities, how do you define her role in society? And what impact will an altering practice have on the disciplines’ institutions, such as the drawing, the architects’ associations, and the museums of architecture?

During the week Apolonija Šušterčič & Meike Schalk, together with architecture students, will act as: architect guard, architect librarian, architect gardener, architect moderator, and invite you to;

• Design and describe an architectural role for yourself. This can be utopian or realistic.
• Speculate on and describe your altering practice.
• Discuss its wider influence on the discipline of architecture and its institutions such as the Architects Associations and the Museum of Architecture.
• Make a collage/ assemblage with image and text that expresses your attitude.
• Make your own T-shirt.

Biografi Meike Schalk och Apolonija Šušterčič har samarbetat sedan 2005. Deras gemensamma praktik studerar bl.a konflikter i det offentliga rummet och kombinerar forskning med kollektivt engagerade projekt och skapandet av specifika rumsliga iscensättningar. Genom sina olika bakgrunder inom arkitektur och landskapsarkitektur (Schalk) och konst och arkitektur (Šušterčič) har de utvecklat en praktik som går bortom professionella skiljelinjer och som därigenom lyckats framkalla mycket skarpa och välutvecklade intresseområden.

Meike Schalk and Apolonija Šušterčič collaborate on urban projects since 2005. Their practice studies conflicts in the public realm. It combines research with the initiation of collective activities, and the creation of specific spatial settings. Gardening on public land, debating issues of activism and urban planning, or working on the role of art institutions in the city, exemplify their initiatives that bring together involved communities and lead to a production and exchange of knowledge…

Through coming from different backgrounds of architecture and landscape architecture (Schalk), and of art and architecture (Šušterčič) they have developed certain foci, which go beyond professional divisions, and have created very specific areas of interest. A central question is citizens’ and communities’ possibilities of participation in shaping public and institutional spaces. During 2010, they have worked with an artistic research project “Participative Mapping” (funded by Vetenskapsrådet). The project is concerned with their describing and inquiring methods, and the tactics and strategies applied in their practice, and the development of a set of imaginative communication techniques adequate to drive a project in the public realm, which are relevant for the fields of art, architecture, urban planning and design. They have recently opened a public art project in Leipzig, the museum café of the Museum of Contemporary Art (GfZK, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst), which has been developed and built in a participative process attempting to open the institutional space to new audiences. Schalk & Šušterčič have conducted projects in Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden. Their work is made accessible through conferences, exhibitions, events, and publications. Currently, they are preparing a book about processes of participation in public art, design and architectural practices, with support of the Museum for Contemporary Art in Leipzig.