CICA 2026 Conference – CfP. Architectural Criticism: Resistance and Commitment

CICA International Hybrid Conference 2026
Casa da Arquitectura – Portuguese Centre for Architecture,
Matosinhos / Porto / Portugal
10-11 and 17-18 October 2026

More information available in this link.

Architecture Criticism: Resistance and Commitment
The written word has long been associated with a place of resistance. It stands as a symbol of freedom, for thought can take shape through infinite associations and luxes of words, giving form to the unimaginable and the impossible. Yet, precisely because of this power, it is also the first medium to be surveyed and attacked by oppressive forces, with writers condemned to silence.
While accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, Albert Camus stated that every generation has sought to change the world, but his — with the Second World War still vivid in collective memory — was perhaps charged with a far more difficult task: that of holding it together, of preventing it from falling apart. Regardless of the historical present, the writer holds a decisive role in this task. As Camus reminded his audience that evening: “In all circumstances of life, in obscurity or temporary fame, cast in the irons of tyranny or for a time free to express himself, the writer can win the heart of a living community that will justify him, on the one condition that he will accept to the limit of his abilities the two tasks that constitute the greatness of his craft: the service of truth and the service of liberty. Because his task is to unite the
greatest possible number of people, his art must not compromise with lies and servitude which, wherever they rule, breed solitude. Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain: the refusal to lie about what one knows and the resistance to oppression. For more than twenty years of an insane history, hopelessly lost like all the men of my generation in the convulsions of time, I have been supported by one thing: by the hidden feeling that to write today was an honour because this activity was a commitment – and a commitment not only to write. Specifically, in view of my powers and my state of being, it was a commitment to bear, together with all those who were living through the same history, the misery and the hope we shared.”
Around the same time, in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and many other countries across the world, people were living under fascist regimes that imposed strict control over any creative or expressive acts opposing them. Within each of these contexts, writers used literature and poetry to express their critiques and denunciations, giving rise to models of resistance and commitment. In Portugal in particular, Sophia de Mello Breyner’s poetry was necessarily encrypted and indirect, yet deeply committed to denouncing and rejecting the oppression of the Salazar regime (Estado Novo). Inevitably, several of her verses became, in the aftermath of the April Revolution, a clear expression of that resistance, still echoing in the annual celebrations of the revolution.
Today, we find ourselves once again immersed in an “insane history” — as Camus would call it — a time when the world faces the collapse of shared meaning and the erosion of collective hope, while we bear witness to natural and human catastrophes, the rise of military and oppressive regimes, the annihilation of communities, and the violent seizure of land. In this context, where various fields of knowledge strive to denounce and to propose action, writing reasserts itself as an act of resistance, a means of giving voice to those who remain unheard.
In the field of architecture — often complicit with systems of power — resistance and commitment are more frequently associated with forms of activism grounded in practice: providing shelter for populations displaced by war or natural disasters, developing housing within controlled budgets, or engaging in other initiatives that reflect architecture’s mission to contribute to a better world. Far less often are these values associated with the written word. Writing allows for far faster production and dissemination, and it is perhaps the most powerful instrument architecture possesses for engaging with its role in these harsh times within the public sphere — a sphere to which the written word always belongs, and which remains distinct from the space of the building.
Architectural critique, for its part, is most often confined to the analysis of buildings or built environments within their contexts of production, rather than striving to articulate those same ensembles through the ethical values — and, following Wittgenstein, we may understand that ethics = aesthetics — intrinsic to the
discipline itself. If architecture is to take a stance on the dangers threatening both the built fabric and living communities as the world unravels, critique must become a space of resistance and commitment within the discipline, capable of uncovering the hidden structures of power, meaning, and social formation.
In this way, it can also alert — through careful reflection — to the problems the world faces today, and, by extension, to those of architecture as a discipline that defines the very limits of the built environment. Addressing, for instance, questions like: the resilience of cities and citizenship; the critical discourse on Habitat (both locally and planetary); the de/re-colonisation of cultural identities and territories; and the conflictual relation between media, populism and freedom of (critical) speech, in the context of built space. Architectural critique can generate discourses of resistance, confronting what remains invisible or oppressed even within architecture itself, while remaining mindful of its own traps — for instance, the entire history of modern architecture and the sense of hopelessness it has produced around the discipline’s humanist
mission.
Architecture criticism has a long and fruitful tradition that confronts a changing cultural e media environment in which critical discourse acquires new meanings, formats and tools. The reactivation of the practices of writing of the tradition of the architectural critic has the potential of engaging the problematics and complexities of the contemporary world, expanding its field of action in the relation of text and image and crossing activities from architectural design to curatorial practices.
Critique thus carries both a visionary and a revolutionary character. More than once, it has been critique that established new architectural perspectives, opened alternative paths, and inspired radical visions, fostering marginal practices in response to the prevailing “state of things.” For this reason, architectural critique
embodies a commitment not merely to write (to paraphrase Camus), but to question its own actions and their impact in these difficult times.

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