ABSTRACT

The shift of focus from forming to curating the city marks a significant change within

architectural discourse. Not only does it confirm an interest in other cultural fields

(which has characterized architectural consciousness for a good many years now), it

means looking directly at issues of spatial representation and interpretation, rather than

form as an end result. This is a positive sign. While art has been intensely preoccupied

with problematizing its own identity and legitimacy in the so-called post-medial era, tar-

geting critical questions as to the nature and status of the artwork, the meaning of

authorship vis-à-vis the beholder etc., architecture has shown an amazing disinterest in

performing a similar act of self-scrutiny. The professional role of the architect has, to a

large degree, remained unchanged, founded on an assumed expertise in thinking and

forming space that simply has been handed down since early modernity. Curatorship

involves a different conception of space, not as primarily designed or controlled by the

architect/planner, but as a temporal, social and cultural phenomenon that is only par-

tially defined by form. Yet, much like the architect, the curator is a person who is sup-

posedly in control of a conceptually complex situation. Bridging the expanse between

production and interpretation, author and reader, the curator is the ultimate mediator.1

So how can this shift of focus shed light on the conditions for not merely exhibiting