Mission Statement
Writingplace is a platform aimed at exploring alternative ways of looking at architecture, urban places and landscapes through literary writing. It is a laboratory, where experiments take place; testing conventions and limits and transcending boundaries while gathering professional knowledge and understanding in the process.
Writingplace is literally a place where people, ideas and experiments converge around the idea that literature – be it fiction, poetry or theory – and literary approaches can make architecture richer, and vice versa. Writingplace provides architects, writers, students, teachers, academics, poets and anyone else with an interest in (or thinking about) the connection between architecture and literature, with an open field of experimentation for exchange and discussion. We try not to be an institute, but a place; present in different locations at different times, but always at our site in the internet.
As a laboratory, we do not restrain initiatives or fixate processes. Instead we let different angles and new perspectives determine our experiments. Writingplace follows these premises piecemeal. By allowing close-to-total freedom regarding contributions, we hope to foster and inspire creativity and new ideas. However, in order to structure our activities we base our discussions upon four fundamental pillars; research, debate, publication and the construction of a network of common interests. Together, these four pillars form the identity of Writingplace.
Laboratory;
Our main focus is placed on experimentation and research on the subject of architecture and literature. Through workshops, essays, projects, creative writing, poems, fiction, and other such formats, we study the two disciplines and their points of convergence as valid methods of communication and representation. Most importantly, we like to share our findings. Writingplace combines extremely different and diverse perspectives and angles on these subjects, and provides a database for investigators, scholars, students and the broader public, as long as they share interests akin to ours.
Debate;
Writingplace does not only gather content and knowledge. Through debates, conferences or lectures we try to be actively present in pressing contemporary debates with our ideas and postures. Taking part in the academic discourse is a good way to test our theories, sharpen our ideas, and promote different ways of addressing architecture and literature.
Publication;
The website of Writingplace is an online platform on which we publish our experiments and findings. With time this platform should form a library where diverse representations, projects and experiments are stored for future use. Aside from ongoing online activities we aim to publish hard copies of Writingplace magazines, addressing relevant themes or anchoring the knowledge obtained from special events, such as conferences or projects. Online and physically, Writingplace works as an open library, available to everyone.
Network;
Through our contributors, our presence at debates and conferences and our online library, we operate as a network of people with a broad array of skills and experiences. By sharing our knowledge we sharpen each other’s ideas, discover new perspectives and consider different angles for any particular topic. With the growth of our distinctly diverse group, we aim to become an important voice for the promotion of alternative ways of looking at architecture, urban places and landscapes.