EAHN Thematic Conference
KTH Stockholm 17–19 June 2027
CfP
THEME
This conference aims to investigate bureaucracy as a site of struggles for spatial solidarity and, as such, as an essential part of the architecture discipline. To establish and secure a democratic and solidary society, it needs law and bureaucracy. As the historian Reinhart Koselleck shows, in processes of emancipation, the principle of self-liberation is always entwined with the socio-regulatory framework of law. Highlighting an intermediary sphere in the production of architecture, bridging from the first ideas to the architect’s design phase and the construction site, this conference aims to theorize and map a space of radical bureaucracies in architecture.
“Radical” here refers to advocating social change, while “bureaucracies” are understood as regulatory techniques that often covertly control the built environment. The conference will investigate radical bureaucracy as a practice that endeavors to change the control mechanisms of the built environment – architecture’s invisible infrastructure. Instead of following Max Weber, who held bureaucracy to be a “rational institution” and the opposite of the aesthetic, imaginary, and emotional, the project takes it to be a site of speculation, experimentation, and the creation of alternative lifeworlds.
This EAHN Thematic Conference invites papers examining emancipatory work in architectural bureaucracy – in the state apparatus and the private sector – and welcomes papers that take a longer historical perspective. In a time of deregulation of the built environment diminishing spatial democracy, architectural history gains new urgency in providing examples and perspectives that risk falling into oblivion. The conference aims to investigate the theme from a global perspective, drawing on examples from diverse geographical contexts in the global south and north. Situated studies that explore original archives (digital media, protocols, and other forms of bureaucratic documentation) and use experimental methods such as oral history, witness seminars, or other performative techniques are welcome. Empirical case studies, artistic research, and innovative theoretical implications are encouraged.
CALL FOR PAPERS
24 Aug—15 Nov 2026
ORGANIZATION AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Helena Mattsson
Professor, KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm, General Chair
Sara Brolund de Carvalho
Adjunct and PhD student, KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm
Meike Schalk
Professor, KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm
CONFERENCE PROGRAM
To be announced.
RATES AND REGISTRATION
To be announced.
CONFERENCE LOCATIONS
To be announced.
CONTACT
COLOPHON
The conference visual identity is designed by Maryam Fanni and inspired by the visual conventions of zoning plans. The display typeface used is FlordeRuina Semilla designed by Felipe Sanzana. This website is developed together with Vincent Orback, and managed by Sara Brolund de Carvalho.