Architecture Responds

Those of us in attendance at this self-styled debate hosted by the Center for Architecture (CFA) were confronted with two big-block words: “ARCHITECTURE RESPONDS.” To what architecture responds or doesn’t respond became a little clearer as moderators Violette De La Selle and Alice Tai read aloud the well-crafted statements they had prepared for the evening. Both are members of Citygroup, a curatorial collective that was named to the CFA’s 2022 class of New Practices; until Covid, they often hosted these sorts of debates at their small Chinatown gallery. In that sense, the event felt like a return to old social rhythms. De La Selle and Tai hoped that participants would consider the “material that has been swept along by the tide of capital—that we as architects are best equipped to contend with.” We were also asked—dared?—to entertain “a bit of a retrograde argument for historic preservation,” which they said could be recast as a site of resistance for obstructing capital flows. As the conversation got going, other questions surfaced. For instance, when does architect…