FAST FORWARD 2014 : Andrew Leach : The Gold Coast Moment
You are warmly invited to our Fast Forward 2014 lecture
This Tuesday 9th September, 6pm, Eng 439
The Australian city-region of the Gold Coast, occupying Queensland’s south-east corner, presents a curious challenge to the role of architectural thought in the city. Aggressively developed over the last half century to accommodate tourism and leisure economies and the social infrastructure that accrues to them, laissez-faire city planning practices rather than intentioned architectural gestures per se, and a marked predilection for kitsch and pastiche, have left a decisive mark on the nature of the city. This lecture sketches an architectural history of the city that stigmatises architecture’s agency since the late modern moment, implicating criticism, architectural thought, patrimony and political instrumentality. It suggests the Gold Coast’s function as a canary in the mine of Australian architecture, opening out to questions regarding the terms on which architectural production, architectural ideas and architectural criticism interact in the present, and the problems this poses for architecture’s institutions.
Andrew Leach is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor of Architectural History at Griffith University (Gold Coast, Australia). Among his books are What is Architectural History? and Manfredo Tafuri: Choosing History as well as the edited volumes Architecture, Disciplinarity and The Arts and Shifting Views.
Andrew Leach is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Professor of Architectural History at Griffith University (Gold Coast, Australia). Among his books are What is Architectural History? and Manfredo Tafuri: Choosing History as well as the edited volumes Architecture, Disciplinarity and The Arts and Shifting Views.
