Call for Papers: International Conference:
Architecture_Metaphor

6-7 November 2020 – Frankfurt am Main, Germany

May 01, 2020

Please note: Given the current Coronavirus situation we will monitor the situation closely and respond as needed.

We commonly and ubiquitously use architectural metaphors in both everyday speech as well as various professional contexts. Yet we rarely, if at all, register this connection when we talk, for example, about software architects, thought constructs, pillars of society, the architecture of the brain or the façade a person puts up. At the same time, metaphors also feature prominently in the fields of architecture and urbanism, where they are being used for the development of design concepts and provide useful means to communicate, discuss and evaluate design features. Examples range from crystalline buildings to the fabric of a city, but also include Le Corbusier’s infamous description of houses as ‘machines for living in.’
The conference aims to explore metaphors as productive mediators in processes of knowledge transfer between the fields of architecture and everyday knowledge and between architectural and other professional discourses. Metaphors, to us, provide a lens that allows us to zoom in on and examine the involvement of architecture in processes of social ordering. The premise of the conference is that metaphors are not merely explanatory in their function but instead interfere with epistemological thought and production processes.
We are not only interested in the connection between different fields, but also different forms of knowledge that metaphors can facilitate and how this relates to architecture.
Therefore, we welcome proposals from all disciplines.
The conference is scheduled to take place in Frankfurt am Main, Germany on 6-7 November 2020.

The full Call for Papers is available here, along with a more elaborate discussion of the conference's rationale and other further information. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to . by 1 June 2020.

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