Open Systems and Total CitiesOpen Systems and Total Cities

On Thursday 7 March, Georg Vrachliotis (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) will deliver the final lecture in the discursive programme of Habitat: Expanding Architecture. Vrachliotis will talk about the influence of systems theory on architecture and planning, with particular attention to the case of Swiss architect Fritz Haller, who created one of the most enigmatic visions regarding total urban systems.

Vrachliotis' lecture will discuss the radical proposals of Fritz Haller (1924-2012), who is primarily remembered for his design of the modular furniture system USM. However, this furniture system was in fact only the modest demonstration of a much larger theory concerning urban planning at a planetary scale. Haller connected ideas for spatial and temporal ordering with his research for the synchronization of language systems. This remarkable conceptual link lead Haller to interpret the entire city as one large construction system. Haller's investigations created an outline for new forms of perception based on notions of infrastructural space and landscape, and transferred the technically invisible into geometric form.

Georg Vrachliotis is Professor of Architecture Theory and director of the architecture research archive at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). He was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Architecture in 2016. He is the curator and (co)author of Geregelte Verhältnisse. Architektur und technisches Denken in der Epoche der Kybernetik (2009), Structuralism Reloaded. Rule-Based Design in Architecture and Urbanism (with T. Valena and T. Avermaete 2011), Fritz Haller. Architect and Researcher (with Laurent Stalder, 2014) and of Frei Otto. Thinking by Modeling (2017). Georg Vrachliotis is member of the advisory board of the magazine ARCH+.

_Habitat: Expanding Architecture_ is a research installation which captures a key moment in the history of architecture and urban planning: the tenth CIAM conference at Dubrovnik in 1956. Here the concept 'habitat' was a central theme: a broader understanding of architecture through a new ecological approach viewing architecture less as an autonomous discipline than as part of larger, dynamic whole. Habitat is the first in a series of Total Space programme installations.

Before the Thursday Night you can grab a bite to eat with the speakers and staff of Het Nieuwe Instituut. At 18:00 Het Nieuwe Café will serve a light vegetarian meal. Dinner vouchers are available for ¬ 7.70 up to a day before the particular Thursday Night event via the Tickets link.

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