Crisis in the Culture Cabinet: Oswald Mathias Ungers, Colin Rowe and the Architekturtheorie Internationaler Kongress, TU Berlin, 1967

Abstract

In December 1967 Oswald Mathias Ungers convened an international congress on “Architectural Theory” at the TU Berlin. The proceedings of this event were published in German one year later. Here, two excerpts from those proceedings are published in English for the first time: the opening address given by Ungers, and a lecture by Colin Rowe. Ungers’ welcoming remarks emphasise the importance of discussing architecture’s theoretical foundations in a time of mounting protests, major technological innovations and an intense phase of building activity in the city of Berlin. He openly questions whether historical insights remain relevant, or whether they burden contemporary practice. Rowe responds by dissecting architecture’s engagement with history. Rather than analysing the present situation, Rowe delves into modernism’s historical subconscious and demonstrates how the threat of crisis has been used to fuel two enduring myths: architects as saviours of society; and their buildings as an index of the times.