Homelessness-the state of having no home-is a growing global problem that requires local discussions and solutions. In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, it has noticeably become a collective concern. However, in recent years, the official political discourse in many countries around the world implies that poverty is a personal fault, and that if people experience homelessness, it is because they have not tried hard enough to secure shelter and livelihood. Although architecture alone cannot solve the problem of homelessness, the question arises: What and which roles can it play? Or, to be more precise, how can architecture collaborate with other disciplines in developing ways to permanently house those who do not have a home? Who's Next? Homelessness, Architecture, and Cities seeks to explore and understand a reality that involves the expertise of national, regional, and city agencies, nongovernmental organizations, health-care fields, and academic disciplines. Through scholarly essays, interviews, analyses of architectural case studies, and research on the historical and current situation in Los Angeles, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, Sao Paulo, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo, this book unfolds different entry points toward understanding homelessness and some of the many related problems. The book is a polyphonic attempt to break down this topic into as many parts as needed, so that the specificities and complexities of one of the most urgent crises of our time rise to the fore.
Daniel Talesnik is a curator at the Architekturmuseum of the Technische
Universität München (TU Munich), where in 2019 he curated Access for All: São Paulo's Architectural
Infrastructures, which was
later shown in 2020 at the Center for Architecture in New York City and in 2021
at the Schweizerisches Architekturmuseum (S AM) in Basel. He is an
architect who studied at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (2006) and
earned a PhD from Columbia University (2016) with the dissertation "The
Itinerant Red Bauhaus, or the Third Emigration." He teaches at the TU Munich
and has also taught at the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Chile, Columbia
University, and the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Andres Lepik is the director of the Architekturmuseum at the Technische
Universität München (TU Munich) and a professor of history of architecture and
curatorial practice at the TU Munich. He studied art history, graduating with a
PhD on Architectural Models in the Renaissance. From 1994 he worked as a curator
at the Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, where he presented the exhibitions Renzo Piano (2000) and Content: Rem Koolhaas and AMO/OMA (2003). From 2007 to 2011 he was a
curator in the Architecture and Design Department at The Museum of Modern Art,
New York, presenting the exhibition Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement (2010). In 2011-12, Lepik was a Loeb
Fellow at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.
Alejandra Celedon is an architect who graduated from the Universidad de
Chile in 2003. She earned her MSc Advanced Architectural Studies from The
Bartlett, University College London in 2007 and her PhD from the Architectural
Association, London, in 2014. She was the curator of the Stadium, Chilean
Pavilion, at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale (2018) and the co-curator of
The Plot: Miracle and Mirage at the 3rd Chicago Architecture
Biennial (2019). Her recent publications include the book Stadium: A Building That Renders the
Image of a City (Park
Books, 2018) and the essays "The Chilean School: A Room for Upbringing and Uprising"
(AA Files, 2020) and "The Plot: Miracle and
Mirage" (Revista 180, 2021). She is the head master of
the architecture program at the School of Architecture, Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Chile.
Clara Chahin Werneck is a twenty-five-year-old architect and urban planner
with a degree from the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de
São Paulo (FAU-USP) in 2020, having done an exchange program at Accademia di
Architettura di Mendrisio, Switzerland. During her studies, she received a scholarship
to conduct undergraduate research on the topics of spatial perception and
phenomenology in architecture. Chahin Werneck has worked in architectural firms
in São Paulo such as Studio MK27 and Nitsche Arquitetos. She is interested in
exploring the combination of practice and theoretical knowledge by engaging in
projects on different scales and contexts, with a respectful consideration for the
use of resources and materiality.
Tatiana Efrussi is an artist and art historian currently based in
Paris. In 2011, she graduated from Lomonosov Moscow State University with a
paper on Soviet connections to the Bauhaus. On the basis of this research, in
2012 she curated the exhibition Bauhaus
in Moscow at
Moscow's VKhUTEMAS gallery and graduated with a PhD from Kassel Universiät with
a dissertation entitled "Hannes Meyer: A Soviet Architect." Her artistic
work combines archival research and research into the archaeology of spaces
with images and fiction. Recent exhibitions include Escapism: Training Program (Fabrika CCA, Moscow) and Eccentric Values after Eisenstein (with Elena Vogman, Diaphanes
space, Berlin, 2018). An interest in the contemporary conditions of cultural
labor inspired her to cofound the collective Flying Cooperation in 2015.
