DS16

Ideology in Transparency – Moderated by Murray Fraser

The notion of transparency has achieved a continued, if varied, currency in architectural discourse throughout the twentieth-century. Along with a multitude of material attributes, transparency advocates a shifting, yet ever-present, ideological sensibility. Towards the latter part of the twentieth century, however, the general notion of transparency as an ideological mechanism began to decline. Today, while a literal sense of transparency remains, seemingly its ideology does not. This symposium aims to resurface the question of ideology in (contemporary) architectural discourse by creating dialogues around the following questions:

_ As the notion of transparency appears to be superseded by the immateriality of the digital, how can contemporary architectural research address transparency’s role as a technological innovation, as a mechanism for design, and, above all, as an ideological device?
_ Do new design technologies and media produce more transparent systems of communication?
_ Despite the apparent displacement of ideology in current architectural arguments and projects, what are the subjacent ideologies that remain and how might we be able to scrutinise them?