Speaker Umberto Napolitano

Date 15.3.2023

Time HKT 18:30

Location via Zoom

Architecture has always privileged the doctrinal and prescriptive register in its theorisation. Theory with a capital T has been first explained and then applied, codified to establish certainties: in ten books, in twenty interviews, in seven lamps.

Amidst subprime crises, tsunamis, giant fires and epidemics, the beginning of this century puts the foundations of architecture to the test. A symbol of stability and permanence, the art of building must now come to terms with an unpredictable future.

If the 20th century was a century of predictions, the 21st will be a century of indeterminacy.
The instability of the contemporary will mark the end of dogmatism and push architecture to modify its design processes to make them adaptable and revisable at any time. In a context where the contingent has become the rule, one must learn to think on the edge of improvisation.

In this lecture, Umberto Napolitano, founder of the LAN (Local Architecture Network) architecture studio, will illustrate his years of research in finding the versatile and new tools of a disposable theory. Tools to open up possibilities for action, tools to suspend our certainties, tools to doubt.

Umberto Napolitano (Naples, 1975) studied architecture at the Università Federico II in Naples and then at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Paris-La Villette. Founder of LAN (Local Architecture Network) with Benoit Jallon in 2002, he also conducts a theoretical work through research projects, exhibitions and conferences all around the world.

Umberto was professor at the Columbia University GSAPP of New York (USA) and at the AA (Architecture Association) School of Architecture in London (UK), and currently teaches at the TU in Vienna. He is a member of the French Academy of Architecture since 2016 and was appointed Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2018.

The lecture will be conducted in English. For non-CUHK participants, please register here.