Among other goals, with this series The Architectural League is seeking to encourage disciplinary engagement that reflects critically on destruction—resisting the common impulses that lead our professions to privilege construction. From individual homes to entire ecosystems, built environments and the lives they shape are threatened all around the world. What is the role of architects and planners relative to these challenges? 

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Panelists

Nadi Abusaada is an architect and a historian. He is currently an assistant professor at the School of Architecture and Design at the American University of Beirut and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at MIT and ETH Zürich. Abusaada is the editor-in-chief of Arab Urbanism and a policy member of Al-Shabaka, The Palestinian Policy Network. Nadi has published two edited volumes and written numerous articles on the history and politics of architecture and urban planning in Palestine and the Arab region and is an editorial contributor at The Architectural Review.

Maksym Rokmaniko is an architect, researcher, and educator. His work integrates advanced spatial analysis and visualization techniques to address critical issues of history, media, ecology, and justice. As founding director of the Center for Spatial Technologies (CST), a Kyiv and Berlin-based practice, he leads groundbreaking work in critical spatial research. CST’s projects have been showcased at the Venice Architecture Biennale and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and covered in Die Zeit and The New York Times. A Fulbright Scholar, Rokmaniko has lectured and led workshops at the Architectural Association, Royal College of Art, Columbia University, and Yale Law School.

Alexandra Xanthaki is the UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights. Well-known for her work on migrant, minority, and indigenous rights, Xanthanki’s publications range from issues relating to cultural diversity, cultural heritage, balancing cultural rights, and multicultural aspects of international human rights law. She is professor of laws at Brunel University of London, a member of Athens Bar, and a member of the Oxford Human Rights Faculty. Her forthcoming report to the United Nations Human Rights Council will be on artificial intelligence and creativity.

The program will be moderated by Anjli Parrin. Parrin is a human rights advocate and lawyer. Her practice and research focus on areas of armed conflict and international criminal law, colonialism and its impacts, discrimination and inequality, and socio-economic rights. Parrin serves as an expert witness and has worked alongside forensic scientists to carry out complex war crime investigations, including for international and hybrid courts. She is an assistant clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School, where she also directs the Global Human Rights Clinic.

This event is presented by the Architectural League of New York. Event time is 12:30 p.m. ET, 11:30 a.m. CT.

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