Ines Weizman

In her video work “Of All the Gin Joints in All the Towns in All the World c...” (2023), compilation of archival images of architecture and fragmentary histories, Ines Weizman traces the itinerary of Josephine Baker (1906–1975), the renowned African-American and French performer, who crisscrossed the Arab world during World War II, from Algiers to Casablanca, Tunis, Cairo, Damascus, Beirut, and British Mandate Palestine. Enlisted by the Free French Army as a spy, she traveled throughout the region in 1941–43, taking to the stage in hotel bars and private clubs, gathering points for officers, refugees, journalists, and agents. Fame gave Baker access to information, as her enemies tended to underestimate her.

Although no photographic record of these performances remains, Weizman has unearthed an immense amount of archival material evocative of this period and the places through which Baker traveled: street scenes in Algiers, bomb-damaged archaeological sites and museums in Tunisia, military bands, US troops in Casablanca—and, most evocatively, the exteriors, ballrooms, and lobbies of early twentieth-century grand hotels. These modernist structures served as markers and meeting points in the colonial world of the Middle East, which Baker navigated. As evidenced by a fading French tricolor painted on the wall of a Haifa casino, these spaces were the backdrop for her fight against fascism, part of her larger struggle against racism and xenophobia that did not end with the war. Related to this video work that was first shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023, Ines Weizman developed a two book projects, several essays and the installation was shown in Berlin and Ryad. Her book *Joséphine Baker across the Colonial Modern* is being published by Sternberg Press in 2027.

Joséphine Baker and modern architecture across the colonised Arab world

This research project reflects on the relevance of the concept of dissidence for architects today. Although dissidence is primarily associated with the political and cultural practices of individuals in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War, contemporary aesthetic practices have in recent years developed a range of new methodologies and techniques for articulating their distance from, and critique of, dominant political and financial structures. The project maps the possibility of dissidence in architecture across a variety of historical and geographical contexts. Rather than separating contemporary architectural gestures and techniques of dissent from the political struggles of the Cold War, it asks how these practices, as well as the dilemmas associated with them, connect to a deeper and more complex history. 

Bringing together architectural practice, scholarship, and political theory, the project constructs a multifaceted lexicon of concepts that may point towards possible ways forward for politically and theoretically committed architects.

Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence

Godofredo Enes Pereira

Visualising Relations to Land of Traditional and Indigenous Peoples

Of Traditional and Indigenous Peoples

Visualizing Relations to Land

Sam Jacoby

Alvaro Arancibia

Considering the central economic and social role of housing, and the fact that most people spend more than half of their lives at home, we know surprisingly little about what the average home looks like, what or who designs these homes, how this varies between countries, or what it is like to live in these homes. While high-quality and well-designed homes are widely regarded as essential to wellbeing and social equity, the definition of ‘good design’, how to achieve it, or its relationship to architecture is often not very clear. Significant disagreement on how to define and measure housing design quality has resulted in inconsistent and substandard housing outcomes. For instance, we found that only 43% of recently completed affordable housing in England met the Nationally Described Space Standard.

Most housing is highly standardised in design, style, and construction, especially when built at scale by large housebuilders who favour standard dwelling types, as this saves costs and is low risks. According to the Royal Institute of British Architects, only 6% of new UK housing is directly designed by architects. In subsidised housing – whether public, social, or affordable – which is typically designed to just meet minimum standards, not the architect but housing design governance, shaped by mandatory and voluntary policies, regulations, codes, and guidelines, is increasingly important to ensure that housing is decent.

This study of housing standardisation explores the far-reaching impact of design governance on the quality and type of new subsidised housing. There is limited research on the tangible value of architectural design to the life of residents or how housing design decisions are determined by regulations and standards and their underpinning drivers. This project examines how design governance is specific to a time and place, shaped by socio-political housing agendas, evolving socio-technical norms, and socio-cultural housing expectations, all of which impact the criteria and decision-making processes determining housing and its design quality.

The need for subsidised housing typically arises from the failure of the free housing market to provide affordable and decent housing, compelling the government to extensively intervene in housing supply through direct or indirect subsidies. This project investigates design governance in both historical and contemporary contexts of regulatory cultures, regimes, and instruments in England and Chile – two countries particularly known for their neoliberal housing policy – but also includes a comparison with Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and China, which represent a diverse range of housing systems and subsidised housing approaches. The project is interested in the housing produced by design regulations and standards, their effectiveness, and how residents experience and perceive their homes and their design quality. 

Our findings highlight the difficulty in defining global minimum housing standards, and that standards and housing quality tend to considerably vary even nationally. There are also significant differences between the assumptions or evidence underpinning universal standards and the lived experiences of residents and actual uses of homes. This indicates important limitations of regulations and standards in capturing the needs of the most vulnerable. This study therefore seeks to uncover the richness of housing experiences and diversity of standards, and the questions this raises for equitable housing quality.

RCA School of Architecture Research

Projects:

Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence

Visualizing Relations to Land
Of Traditional and Indigenous Peoples

Projects: Themes (7)

Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence

Visualizing Relations to LandOf Traditional and Indigenous Peoples

Projects:

Visualizing Relations to Land
Of Traditional and Indigenous Peoples