Du 06.10.2026
au 08.12.2026
conférences

Housing issues dominated the 20th century, driven by Modernity’s social project in favour of decent housing. Concepts such as the Existenzminimum and housing types such as the housing block were devised in this context. From the mid-1960s onwards, the study of the mysterious links between architecture and the city, led by Aldo Rossi and the representatives of the Tendenza, sparked a veritable urban obsession amongst architects and further reinforced the interest in housing, this time for its capacity to shape urban forms.
Following the eclipse brought about by the rise of iconic architecture and the triumph of Postmodernism at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, the issue of housing is now back at the forefront. It is championed by practices which, for the most part, devote the bulk of their work to this field and operate exclusively within the public sector.
Instead of the term ‘housing’, which carries strong connotations of its functionalist dimension, the term ‘habitat’ is now preferred to denote this field of inquiry which, rather than a programme, signifies an attitude, a way of considering architecture through its most repetitive, most commonplace and seemingly most insignificant aspects—a conceptual space in which the most infinitesimal variations can have considerable consequences, making it one of the most powerful architectural crucibles. Today, ‘habitat’ serves as a kind of control tower from which themes as broad as lifestyles, the evolution of the family, climate, the relationship between spatial composition and structural design, gender, work, the city, architectural poetics, the existential nature of space, our relationship with time, and so on.
This series invites us to listen to a cross-generational panel of leading figures in this field of inquiry, serving as a pretext to discuss architectural form—which shapes the ways in which we live and dream—and the kinds of existential connections we maintain with it. All these practices are characterised by their openly exploratory nature.
Given the relatively short format of the Tuesday lectures, these architects will present a limited number of buildings in detail, as a starting point for sharing their conceptual perspectives on the issue of housing.

Proposed guests

Tuesday 6 October
Raphaëlle Hondelatte (Paris)

+ more information to follow

Tuesday 13 October
Ana Luisa Soares (fala, Porto/Lausanne, visiting professor at HEAD Geneva and EPFL) - fala
Good Housing

Ana Luísa Soares (Porto, Portugal, 1988) is an architect. She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Porto in 2011 and is currently completing her PhD at the same institution. Since 2015, she has taught a s a visiting professor at several Europe and North America schools, and currently teaches at the Yale School of Architecture.
More information

Tuesday 20 October
Christian Scheidegger (Scheidegger Keller, Zurich)

Further details to follow

Tuesday 3 November
Tanja Reimer (Doscre, Zurich)

Further details to follow

Tuesday 10 November

Further details to follow

Tuesday 17 November

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Tuesday 24 November
Roger Diener

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Tuesday 8 December
José Toral (Peris + Toral, Barcelona)

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The series curators

Tristan Chadney, Laurent Esmilaire and Éric Lapierre