Works and Words – Artistic Research in Architecture

Works and Words: Artistic Research in Architecture bring together projects and reflections by more than forty architects from across the world. It demonstrates how artistic practice can both illuminate fundamental architectural issues and address the most important questions of our time. In doing so, it seeks to strengthen the link between artistic research and professional practice.

Architecture strives to develop society in a positive direction. It addresses current issues and attempts to concretise new ways of living. As an artistic practice, architecture explores the fundamental conditions for practice through experiments with architectural drawings, models, and other media. Artistic practice is therefore an integral part of the work of innovative design studios, and its importance is demonstrated when a building showcases a new understanding of architecture. Furthermore, artistic practice is an important part of the qualitative shift that our society is facing today. In needing to rethink our relationship with the world and find new ways of living, we need new images in which to reflect ourselves.

Structured as an archipelago of projects, the book documents and contemplates the three Works and Words Biennales for Artistic Research in Architecture which took place in Copenhagen in 2017, 2019, and 2022 through images, essays, and interviews. It shows how questions are often raised, explored, and answered through experimentation with materials. Furthermore, it demonstrates that artistic research in architecture is as concerned with inventing new problems as it is with creating new solutions.

Peter Bertram is an architect, researcher, and associate professor at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. He heads the master’s programme Art and Architecture and the organising committee of the artistic research biennial Works+Words. His research focuses on artistic methodology and architectural typology. He has exhibited widely in Denmark and internationally, and has published several books, including Problem Invention (AADR, 2019).

Martin Søberg is an architectural historian specialising in modern and contemporary architecture, with a particular focus on the relationship between work and idea. His research focuses onarchitectural theory, artistic development and poetics. He is interested in architects’ theoretical and other discursive work and how it relates to the meaning of architecture in both built and imaginary form. He is the author and co-editor of several research-based books and publications on architecture and image theory. He chairs Docomomo Denmark and is vice-chair of the Danish Association of Art Historians.