Poetics of the Possible. Methods of Architectural Analysis and Imagination

In her inaugural address, Klaske Havik makes a plea for imaginative thinking about possible spatial and temporal realities. Taking imagination as a crucial capacity that all architects employ, she will shine a light on how creative imagination works, and how it is used in various disciplines. It is precisely this interdisciplinary look at architectural questions, that characterizes her chair Methods of Analysis and Imagination at the Department of Architecture at TU Delft.

Next to analytical methods - ranging from plan analysis to phenomenological and narrative analysis-, the Chair explores methods of imagination as a crucial source of innovation, thereby looking at how architects can learn from imaginative thinkers and makers in other fields. These diverse ways of knowing can offer valuable insights about the perceptual, social and cultural aspects of the built environment. 

Klaske Havik is an architect, scholar and writer.  Advocating a literary approach to architecture to address societal issues, Havik published, among many other edited books and articles, Urban Literacy. Reading and Writing Architecture (2014). She was editor of architecture journals de Architect and OASE, and initiated the Writingplace Journal for Architecture and Literature. Havik’s literary work appeared in poetry collections and literary magazines.  She is Chair of the EU COST Action Writing Urban Places. New Narratives for the European City – an international and interdisciplinary network that seeks for more socially inclusive and locally specific urban places through the investigation of local narratives.

More information

• The inaugural lecture on 1 October is online and will be held in English.
• Professor's page Klaske Havik
• Interview 'No innovation without imagination' (September 2020)