Open Call - Spring 2026
WORK, WORK, WORK
ON THE SO-CALLED ARCHITECT, LABOUR AND THE FIELD
ON THE SO-CALLED ARCHITECT, LABOUR AND THE FIELD
This semester, Unmasking Space wants to challenge the role model of the ideal architect, promoted in university and working culture.
In their 2021 analysis, 'ENGAGE D-ARCH', Engage Arts described the 'ideal architect' as being promoted at ETH as follows: “academic, intellectual, male, white, Western, straight, from a wealthy or architectural family, overworked, well-dressed, a genius designer, childless or not taking on parental responsibilities, and thriving through connections (...)”
Five years later, we’re asking: where do we stand now?
We welcome contributions that address working conditions in architecture, in both education and professional practice. Ranging from excessive workload and precarity to strategies of resistance and collectives, we expand upon the field of architecture in response to current global struggles.
By questioning the authorship in architecture, we seek to encourage moving beyond the figure of the solitary genius, and to acknowledge the multiple forms of labour that are part of architectural production. This includes rethinking who else could be considered an architect, highlighting alternative role models and developing counter-canons that challenge dominant images of expertise and authority.
We are seeking contributions that take feminist, queer, decolonial, collective and worker-centred approaches, that challenge top-down teaching and the star system, and that imagine more accessible ways of studying, teaching and practising architecture.
REQUIREMENTS
- Proposals are encouraged to experiment with new settings of teaching and learning.
- Applications should include a description of your proposal for a single session (around 400 words)
- The standard slot is a 1h30 session on Thursday afternoons in an allocated seminar room on the campus of ETH Hönggerberg in Zurich, but we are open to alternative timeframes and locations.
- Submissions are open to Bachelor, Master, or Ph.D. students. We also encourage applications from candidates who are currently not enrolled or part of an institution.
- We prioritise candidates that are able to hold an in-person session in Zurich. Travel costs for trains can be covered by us.
- Send your submissions to unmaskingspace@arch.ethz.ch before January 11, 2026.
- You will receive a response within calendar week 3. If your application fits the semester structure, we will schedule short Zoom calls in calendar week 4.