WAI Architecture Think Tank is a planetary studio practicing by questioning the political, historical, and material legacy and imperatives of architecture and urbanism. Founded in Brussels during the financial crisis of 2008 by Puerto Rican architect, artist, curator, educator, author and theorist Cruz García and French architect, artist, curator, educator, author and poet Nathalie Frankowski, WAI is one of their several platforms of public engagement that include Beijing-based anti-profit art space Intelligentsia Gallery, and the free and alternative education platform and trade-school Loudreaders. Their work has been included in exhibitions at the Neues Museum Nuremberg, MoMA in New York, MAAT Lisbon and they are the authors of Narrative Architecture: A Kynical Manifesto (nai010 Publishers, 2020), An Anti-Racist Manual of Architecture Education (2020), Pure Hardcore Icons: A Manifesto on Pure Form in Architecture (Artifice Books, 2013) and co-editors of the forthcoming The Planetary Wretched: A Post-Colonial Narrative Architecture Poetry Book. Garcia and Frankowski are Associate Professors at Iowa State University.
The lecture will be held in English language.