If “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan famously put it, what happens when architectural theory moves beyond print? Hosted by CCA HTX as a part of the fall 2021 Architectural Theory course, The Materialities of Architectural Discourse explores the new mediums and platforms through which architectural theory is happening today—particularly emerging ones that might call into question some of the ways that theory and discourse have familiarly been materialized. From blogs to podcasts to loud readers, what possibilities and perils do new mediums raise for architectural thought and discourse? 

A conversation featuring:

Jess Myers, a podcaster, writer and editor focusing on urban planning and architecture. Her podcast Here There Be Dragons explores the intersection of identity politics and security policy in public spaces. She is an assistant professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Cruz Garcia and Nathalie Frankowski, co-founding partners of WAI Architecture Think Tank and authors of Narrative Architecture: A Kynical Manifesto and A Manual of Anti-Racist Architecture Education. They are the creators of Loudreaders, an open pedagogical platform and free trade school that engages with architectural education as a form of mutual aid and critical solidarity. Garcia and Frankowski are faculty at Iowa State University.

Kate Wagner, an architectural critic, sportswriter, and creator of the blog McMansion Hell. She has written for Curbed, 99 Percent Invisible, The Atlantic, Architectural Digest and more.

Moderated by James Graham and Irene Cheng, CCA HTX.

The HTX lab at California College of the Arts is a platform for advanced interdisciplinary research and critical engagement in architecture. HTX is dedicated to expanding and intensifying the ways we think about buildings and landscapes. We are especially interested in alternative and experimental modes of historical practice, including spatial activism, counter-histories, reconstructions, exhibitions, and new materialities of discourse.