Power | Issue no.03
location - Caliper Journal
about - Caliper Journal is an independent, youth-led architecture journal from Melbourne (Naarm)
type - publication
year - 2018
status - Complete, dispatched
editors - Nicola Cortese, Lauren Crocket, Stephanie Pahnis and Senesios Frangos
guest editor - Amy Evans
Architecture, since its historical foundations, has been used as a tool for expressing, implementing and symbolising power in societies. Architects have shaped our buildings and cities, yet it has always been at the bidding of regimes of power; emperors, governments, churches, companies and wealthy individuals.
Even the very first recorded words of architectural theory are a glowing dedication, written by Vitruvius, to the emperor Augustus – the most powerful man on Earth. Architecture was used as a means of homogenising the Roman Empire through its continuous deployment of the classical language. The language of corporate architecture plays a similar role today.
Is it the case then, that architecture is fundamentally bound to those with power?
And, what is its relationship to those without it?
Amy is an Australian Architect and Spatial Designer based in Berlin. Her work explores the intersection of art and architecture. Her site specific projects span exhibition and installation design, scenography, set design, and architecture - from concept to completion.
As well as research and design work, she regularly teaches design studios at both the University of Melbourne and RMIT.
Amy was a recipient of the Marten Bequest 2020 for her ongoing project titled ‘The City Shaped’.