A special section of PAJ: A Journal of Performance Art, guest-edited by Cathryn Dwyre & Chris Perry, Performance and Architecture features an introduction by the guest editors, an interview they conducted with architect, theorist & educator, Bernard Tschumi, and design work by ten contemporary design practices.
At first glance, one might consider architecture and performance to be antithetical to one another, in so far as a building is generally characterized by qualities of stasis and permanence while performance, understood here in terms of movement, is its opposite, temporal and impermanent in nature. However, beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, the discipline of architecture embarked on what has been at least a century-long experiment to embody and express the dynamic qualities of movement.
This special section of PAJ, Performance and Architecture, is concerned with our contemporary moment, specifically the ways in which the discipline of architecture, as well as landscape architecture, engage aspects and qualities characteristic of performance. However, when considering the present it is always useful to reflect on the past, in part because one inevitably discovers that while the work of the present may seem novel in many respects, it is inextricably linked to the issues, challenges, debates, and ambitions of previous generations. In this respect, we consider Bernard Tschumi to be an important figure within the discipline of architecture whose work and ideas provide an historical bridge between the first and second generation of modernists and our more recent period of architectural experimentation and production at the turn of the twenty-first century. As a result, and immediately following an introduction to Performance and Architecture, the issue begins by featuring an interview with Tschumi before proceeding to the work of ten contemporary design practices.
In selecting these ten design practices, each of which expand the field of architecture, as well as landscape architecture, as a means of redefining it, largely through the incorporation of external forms of knowledge and expertise, Performance and Architecture seeks to establish a compelling lineage within both disciplines, specifically the ways in which architecture and landscape have played with and continue to engage aspects and qualities of performance.
Link to read the introduction to Performance and Architecture: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00230
