Speaker: Kiel Moe – Gerald Sheff Chair in Architecture, McGill University
With a post-lecture discussion featuring: Sanford Kwinter – Professor at Pratt Institute
In Climate Change, Architecture Change, architect and researcher Kiel Moe argues for a fundamental rethinking of architecture in response to the intertwined climate, social, and political crises of our time. Drawing on Alfred North Whitehead’s theory of the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness,” Moe critiques the dominant assumptions that define architecture as static, isolated objects within a Cartesian framework.
Instead, Moe advocates for a more nuanced understanding of buildings as energetic, material events embedded in ecological and political processes. “Architecture is not simply located,” he asserts, challenging the conventional notion of architecture as fixed in space, and urging a shift toward frameworks that reflect its dynamic entanglements with energy, matter, and history.
The lecture concludes with a conversation with Sanford Kwinter, Moe’s co-author on the forthcoming book What is Energy and How (Else) Might We Think About it?, where the two discuss alternative models for thinking about architecture in an era of systemic transformation.