Submission deadline:

April 24, 2023

DISTANT PROXIMITIES | V AEAULP International Seminar on Architecture and Urbanism

November 22-24, 2023
Brasilia
Brazil

22-24 NOV 2023 Brasília, Brasil

Today, despite the upheavals typical of an age based on technology and information, despite the risks inherent in this kind of society and awareness of the challenges it poses, we are more aware of what surrounds us. Our conscience enshrined the idea of a single world. Not global, not generic, but one and undivided, made up of spaces that were once separate and are now permanently connected. These connections, more than airlines or long-distance communication systems, make us aware of an interconnected world that leaves no one or any place isolated. We have moved from a world made up of fragments separated by space, ignorance and prejudice, to a world in which borders are falling, one by one.

Humanity does not function as a single entity in an increasingly pluralistic world. A mirror of this was the recent pandemic state that we witnessed globally as a modern society. The connecting links between individuals were, until then, acquired data, like cumulative and associative layers of what we understood as a community. Suddenly, these constitutive rights of our modern conquest were taken away from us. After the first shock wave, what kept us together inside the house was the intrinsic ability to stay close, though physically separated, over large or small distances.

The motto that the Academy of Portuguese Language Schools of Architecture and Urbanism proposes for the V
Seminar is to describe the relationships that kept people close, which was reflected not only in human capital, but also in the
capital of the city structure. The conference intends to reactivate these relationships, to reconquer those that were lost, solidify those that were maintained and exalt those that were built anew and still remain. Distant Proximity is the antonym that tries to make these experiences real. It seeks to give voice to a ‘language that we all inhabit’ and in which all these thoughts of proximity and distance, science and vox populi manifest themselves. It is important to re-establish the ties that have become dormant, but also to share this experience of ours as a social organism, as a community.

In contemporary society, the flow of information can be used as a control of that same society or as a unifying tool between
the individual and the plural. It is up to, not only but also, academic society to create operative ties and scrutinize
information, so that the subject is aware of his real past, has a perfect understanding of his present and manages to exercise
dominion over his future.

  • Thematic Axes
  • The city in a post-pandemic society
  • The new mobilities
  • Tourism and landscape
  • Urban heritage and architecture
  • Sustainability and technology
  • Catastrophes, conflicts and reconstruction
  • Democracy and the housing crisis
  • Transversalities and contaminations in Lusophone territories
  • Architecture as a cultural statement
  • The role of architectural theory and criticism

Important Dates:
24 APRIL– Reception of Abstracts
15 OCTOBER– Delivery of Revised Final Papers
22- 24 NOVEMBER – Conference takes place

More information can be found here.

Share this post

News from the field

The Linda Hall Library Fellowship

The Linda Hall Library is now accepting applications for our 2026-27 fellowship program. These fellowships provide graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and independent scholars in the history of science and related humanities fields with financial support to...

Building and Material Heritage

The full-time academic position in “Building and Material Heritage” aims to develop teaching and research activities in the field of documenting and intervening on existing buildings, at the intersection of history, construction cultures and techniques, architectural...

Expanding Agency Exhibition & Programming Grant Call

The European Research Council funded project Expanding Agency: Women, Race, and the Dissemination of Modern Architecture announces its exhibition. This is intended to make available to architecture students in particular the results of our research and to disseminate...

Architecture and Ethics of Care

On the most general level, we suggest that caring be viewed as a species activity that includes everything we do to maintain, continue, and repair our world so we can live as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of...

Architectural Histories Announces New Editorial Board Members

by Markus Lähteenmäki and Laura diZerega The editorial team of Architectural Histories is delighted to announce the appointment of eight new members to the journal's editorial board: Will Davis, Sigrid de Jong, Lisa Godson, Min Kyung Lee, Liva Lupi, Faiq Mari,...