The Architectural Association organises bilingual ‘Jury in translation’ in Mandarin and English

The Architectural Association (AA), the oldest independent school of architecture in the United Kingdom, has a long history of international collaboration. With the launch of the ‘Architecture in Translation’ project, the school is seeking to break out of monolingual architectural discourse and open up new possibilities of communication

The term ‘Jury’ is used specifically in schools of architecture, referring to a panel of experts who provide critical feedback on student presentations. The first Jury in Translation will be held on Friday 24 January to coincide with the Lunar New Year. Students will present projects produced across Chinese-speaking contexts to a panel of invited experts from architecture and related disciplines. The jury will take place in both English and Mandarin and will be translated live.

These juries aim to foster intellectual curiosity and tolerance and create an opportunity to expand our architectural vocabulary through an investigation into specific terminology, contexts and cultures.

“The projects of modernity and globalisation established networks of communication and exchange that prioritised information over knowledge, speed rather than ideas. This project aims to prioritise meaningful communication over efficiency. ‘Architecture in Translation’ asks our students and members to speak their native languages and bring with them their cultural, spatial and architectural ideas,” says Eva Franch i Gilabert, Director of the Architectural Association.

Transcripts of the event in both languages will be used as part of the ongoing research that aims to identify terms and concepts yet to be translated linguistically or culturally and compiled in the ‘Multilingual Dictionary of Architectural Terms’.

Invited critics at the event include: anthropologist Jiazhi Fengjiang, architects Guangyuan Li and Qishan Huang from Foster + Partners, historian Doreen Bernath, Head of Teaching and Learning Mark Morris, Chris Lee of Serie Architects and architect and lecturer Jingru Cyan Cheng.

The next Jury in Translation will take place on Friday 21 February in English and Arabic.