What is Conceptualism?

‘Adventures in Conceptualism’ by Kristoffer Lindhardt Weiss explores the method of concept-based architecture through a series of conversations with some of the world’s leading architects and urbanists. From offices such as Snøhetta, BIG, NL Architects and Danish HLA, the production of formal diversity shows an apparent devotion to a free and experimental practice, cutting across regional differences and stylistic modes. Every new project seems to conceptually reinvent the architectural language, responding to specific programmatic and contextual conditions.

“The term concep­tualism, as applied here, tries to label a modus operandi among a number of archi­tectural practitioners that apparently seem to justify their spatial inventions with direct reference to the complex and often messy context of creative discovery. An emerging tendency to dismiss the cover of applied theory and representational reasoning, including the formal representation of function as championed by early modern pioneers.”