S2 E6: THE FIELD OF DECONSTRUCTION, RESISTANCE, DISCOURSE: A German Legacy Response | DAGMAR RICHTER | Architect and Educator
Born in Germany, post World War II, as part of the generation granted the title of those with ‘grace of late births’, DAGMAR RICHTER describes the impact of that context and time on her work, identity, and places she has since lived. She talks about engagement and discourse in her work as an architect and educator, as the necessary antithesis of the wall of silence she experienced when young.
Her work deconstructs, exposes and reveals what is often uncomfortable, or what she calls ‘not smooth’.
DAGMAR RICHTER BIO
Dagmar Richter, is a German architect and US Professor of Architecture, who has been in private practice in Berlin, Germany and the US since 1989, conducting design research and design-build projects. She studied architecture at the Technical University of Stuttgart, Germany, followed by degrees from the Royal art Academy in Copenhagen, Denmark and the international post graduate program at the Stadel School in Frankfurt, Germany. She was the Chair of Architecture at Cornell University and Pratt Institute School of Architecture and has taught at Harvard University, UCLA, SciARch, Art Academies in Stuttgart, and Berlin, Columbia University and Rhode Island School of Design. Currently, she is teaching at Pratt Institute in New York. She has lectured internationally, published two monographs (XYZ: The Architecture of Dagmar Richter (Princeton Architectural Press, 2001) and Armed Surfaces: Architecture and Urbanisms 5 (Black Dog Press, 2003), and has exhibited her design work around the world.
DAGMAR RICHTER | INFLUENCING GREAT ARCHITECTURE VIDEO
Presidential Lecture: Dagmar Richter and Marc Norman on Cooperative Housing 2020
DAGMAR RICTHER LECTURE AT THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION 2016
DAGMAR RICTHER LECTURE (in German)
ARMED SURFACES by Dagmar Richter
X Y Z THE ARCHITECTURE OF DAGMAR RICHTER
TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT
“My architectural projects have a lot to do with these kinds of discourse about who we are, and how does architecture actually support it, smooth it out or erase it? I think architecture has a certain power ,to do that. But I was also interested in how a user appropriates that architecture and how engagement again, by being not smooth, invites critical appropriation by the user. It is a structure which invites that engagement instead of killing it. Right. So, you don't silence people, you don't make it smooth. Engagement should happen. I do feel that resistance is something which often is regarded as negative, but actually can be a very positive force.”
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Images Courtesy of Dagmar Richter. Images shown are her competition entries, coop housing KUBU 14 in Berlin, her home in Bavaria and covers of her 2 books.