Armillary Lecture: Angela Gigliotti—The Labourification of Work

THE LABOURIFICATION OF WORK: THE CONTEMPORARY MODES OF ARCHITECTURAL PRODUCTION UNDER THE DANISH WELFARE STATE

The practice of architecture is neither a hobby nor a form of entertainment. To be recognized as a profession, architecture must generate sufficient revenue to sustain the livelihoods of numerous individuals within the industry. Additionally, it requires substantial financial resources to materialize its projects. This research begun by clarifying the terminology used to describe the activities of architects. It distinguished between the work itself and the labor involved, separating the creative process from the arduous tasks that architects endure daily. The study incorporated theoretical concepts from political theory to interpret contemporary modes of architectural production.

Assuming that the architectural profession is intrinsically linked to the political and economic systems in which it operates, this research focused on the Danish architectural profession. The presentation specifically challenges the welfare myth associated with Danish architectural production, revealing several neoliberal implications of the Danish welfare state. It aims to frame contemporary architectural practices and examine how Danish architectural professionalism has responded to the pervasive neoliberal shift. Furthermore, the presentation explores the enduring influence of the ‘Golden Years’ generation of welfare architects and their relationship to contemporary Danish architectural professionalism. It questions whether there are any connections between the operational modes of welfare practitioners and those of contemporary architects under neoliberalism.

The study introduces various strategies employed by Danish architectural practices to survive within, against, and beside the dominant economic system. This critical reflection is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with several Danish practitioners, demonstrating the heterogeneity of Danish architectural professionalism under neoliberalism.

Dr. Angela Gigliotti is an architect, educator and researcher. Her Ph.D. thesis in Architecture (Arkitektskolen Aarhus, 2020), “The Labourification of Work: the contemporary modes of architectural production under the Danish Welfare State”, reconstructs the evolution of Danish architectural professionalism, exploring over several centuries the concepts of “labour” and “work” as approached in political theory. She was Visiting Ph.D. Candidate (City-Architecture / Pier Vittorio Aureli / Architectural Association, School of Architecture, U.K., 2018) and the HM Queen Margrethe II’s Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship at Det Danske Institut i Rom (Carlsbergfondet, 2021-24) with the project “Unheard workers: behind a foreign diplomatic architecture of the 1960s in Rome”. As educator, she was Teaching Assistant, Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy, 2010-13, and at NMBU University in Ås, Norway, 2014-15. She is External Lecturer and Research Faculty at DIS Copenhagen, Denmark (s. 2016). She is currently Research Fellow at Istituto Svizzero 2024/2025 and Academic Guest at the Institute for History and Theory at ETH Zürich – Chair of the History and Theory of Urban Design Prof. Dr. Tom Avermaete. Beyond academia, she co-founded the research-based architectural practice OFFICE U67 based in Aarhus, Denmark (s. 2013). Within the field of History and Theory of Architecture, she investigates architectural professionalism, production studies and transnational modes of architectural production, under instances of Danish Welfare State, Danish colonialism and Swiss coloniality.

ABOUT THE LECTURE SERIES
Armillary spheres are “models of the celestial globe constructed from rings and hoops representing the equator, the tropics, and other celestial circles, and able to revolve on its axis.” This lecture series wants to be a window onto the sphere of academic research, gazing at the different constellations drawn by doctoral dissertations within the horizon of architecture. The course aims at inviting researchers that already obtained a PhD to present their dissertation to an audience of doctorands, providing a diverse array of examples and case studies on approaching dissertation work within the field of architecture.