Lecture 1: Sascha Roesler - Revisiting “Stoffwechsel”

In this talk Professor Sascha Roesler will address architecture as a practice that always requires the extraction, processing, construction, adaptation and disposal of materials and represents a complex interweaving of places on local and global scales.
He will refer to the German term “Stoffwechsel” which was coined in the 19th century by such prominent figures as Karl Marx and Gottfried Semper. In the light of their writings, “Stoffwechsel” highlights equally the "transformability of materials" in architecture (ÁkosMoravánszky) and the "metabolic regimes" of urban systems (Timothy Morton).
Based on these two fundamental meanings, he will present historical and contemporary case studies from different parts of the world that shed light on how architects can be involved in processes of “Stoffwechsel”.

Sascha Roesler is an architect and architectural theorist, working at the intersection of architecture, ethnography, and science and technology studies. He is the Associate Professor for Theory of Urbanization and Urban Environments at the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, Switzerland (Università della Svizzera Italiana).

For those who are interested in presence, the conferences will be held in Classroom 201 Lingotto, Thursday 7^th March at 13.00-14.30, but it is possible to follow the conferences live streaming on the ACC Lectures YouTube channel.

All information about the conference cycle is constantly updated on DASP Students Web site.

The event is the LECTURE 1 of ACC Lecture Serie 2024 "Limits of architecture. Architecture of limits" curated by DASP Students | Phd in Architecture. History and Project: Federica Joe Gardella, Giulia Montanaro, Paolo Bianco, Hongye Wu, Federico Madaro, Federica Serra, Saurajeeta Bose, Caterina Juric, Marta Rossi. Coordinated by Professor Mauro Berta