GRK 3022:  Organizing Architectures

• Subject Area: Art History, Music, Theatre and Media Studies ; Construction Engineering and Architecture ; Geography ; History ; Jurisprudence ; Social Sciences
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 523327719

The research training group considers architectures to be both the products as well as the causes of collective processes: It takes into account that, on the one hand, architectures are organized by multi-layered social processes that materialize, embody, and manifest themselves symptomatically in architectures. On the other hand, built or planned structures organize social spaces, which in turn influence the design of new architectures. "Organizing Architectures" aims to investigate precisely this tension between organized architectures and organizing architectures. In doing so, it shifts the focus from the architectural concepts and dispositifs that continue to dominate the discourse (the creative subject, the individual artistic work, the built as the end result of planning) to examining their processual conditions. The group understands architectures as the representation of social ideas and power relations, but also as their causes and catalysts, thus following recent sociological approaches. Organization and collectivity enter into a tense interrelation with attributions of individualized responsibilities and efficacies. The training group thus considers architecture as a space of dynamic processes of negotiation and as directly and inextricably linked with organizational forms such as institutions, networks, and discourses. As focuses of inquiry they structure the training group's research program. This allows the productive interlinking of different theoretical-conceptual, disciplinary, and methodological approaches and to analyze the complex territory of organized and organizing architectures at the intersection of theory and practice. The research training group’s structured and interdisciplinary qualification program offers its doctoral students ideal support with respect to their research as well as planning their careers. In addition to offering interdisciplinary respectively transdisciplinary supervision, the program emphasizes the acquisition of theoretical and methodological competencies. Guests, events and collaborations with partners outside of academia provide furthermore ample opportunities for the doctoral students to develop their professional networks and enhance their visibility. Given the intention of the research training group to work across academic status groups and disciplines, it provides two postdoctoral scholars at a time the opportunity to strategically develop skills to advance their academic careers through individual mentoring and by gaining experience in leading, organizing and planning their own projects. In doing so, the research training group creates a discursive and collaborative environment that facilitates the production of challenging and interdisciplinary research projects located at thematic intersections that can be expected to develop particularly dynamically in the future in terms of both research and practice.

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main
• Co-Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Darmstadt
• Participating Institution: Max-Planck-Institut für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie; Universität Kassel
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Carsten Ruhl
• Participating Researchers: Professor Dr. Jens Borchert; Privatdozent Dr. Peter Collin; Professor Dr. Andreas Fahrmeir; Professorin Dr. Sybille Frank; Professorin Dr. Susanne Heeg; Professor Dr. Rembert Hüser; Professor Dr.-Ing. Martin Knöll; Professorin Dr. Antje Krause-Wahl; Professorin Dr.-Ing. Annette Rudolph-Cleff; Professorin Dr. Christiane Salge; Professorin Dr. Alla Vronskaya