The Berlage Sessions: On Party Planner

On Party Planner

This talk will present Party Planner, an annual architecture and design publication that uses the term "party" as a malleable concept that helps to connect what are often seen as disparate forms of gathering and social interaction. Ranging from raves and casual get-togethers to more formal performances and galas, attending to these dynamic social settings allows for the exploration of architecture as a temporary and responsive mode of space-making.

The publication's inaugural issue is themed "Party Favor," reflecting on the resourcefulness and collective generosity required of informal social gathering. Contributions consider histories of last-minute planning, resource-pooling, and ad hoc design in the context of throwing parties. Under the theme of "After Party," the second issue explores what happens after the party's over, including the expansion and contraction of social networks, the consumption and discarding of commodities, the broadening and narrowing of musical preferences. In the most recent issue, "Party Trick," contributors consider parties as tricks themselves, interrogating the relationship between the aesthetics and effects of illusion and the social and material structures the lie behind the smokescreen.

Party Planner is an initiative of Office Party, a research and design collective found in 2021 and led by Chase Galis, Christina Moushoul, and Sonia Sobrino Ralston. Their aim is to produce temporary events, installations, and exhibitions internationally that investigate "the role of parties and similar ephemeral spaces as the origin of complex social and material networks with urban, political, and environmental effects." Party Planner, the collective's journal, further explores the concept of parties with interdisciplinary collaborators across media formats. 

About Chase Galis

Chase Galis is a doctoral candidate and lecturer at ETH Zürich, jointly appointed between the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture (gta) and the Institute of Landscape and Urban Studies (lus). His work traces multiscalar histories of infrastructure development in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with a focus on their visual, cultural, and environmental legacies. 

About the Berlage Sessions

The Berlage Sessions is a thematic seven-part seminar series focusing on scholarly research and critical approaches to the history and theory of architecture and urban design. This autumn's series, entitled "Post, Publish, or Perish‽" is exploring how architects engage with various publication forms to disseminate their ideas, promote theirs and others work, engage with broader societal design questions, and influence and establish discourse.